


Young Pretenders

by vondrostes



Category: Dunkirk (2017), Dunkirk (2017) RPF, One Direction (Band)
Genre: 2016, Alternate Universe - Canon, Anal Fingering, Anal Sex, Bottom Harry, Fake/Pretend Relationship, Feminine Harry, Jealousy, Light Angst, M/M, Meeting the Parents, Sharing a Bed
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-08-29
Updated: 2019-10-30
Packaged: 2020-09-29 18:30:20
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 19
Words: 71,568
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20440541
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/vondrostes/pseuds/vondrostes
Summary: Jack is a struggling actor looking for his big break; Harry is an international superstar looking to shed his strictly heterosexual reputation. After a chance meeting at an audition for a feature film, Jack and Harry enter into a mutually beneficial (fake) relationship.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> This is self-indulgent fake dating fic inspired by a one-off conversation I had with my friend, Hugo, who doesn't even read my fic (I'm pretty sure) and won't see this author's note. It's a pretty standard fic with all the expected tropes. ;) The reason this isn't tagged as canon compliant is that there are certain AU aspects despite it being a canon universe where people occupy the same roles: namely, Saoirse's involvement with the Lowdens as well as the timeline for the Dunkirk auditions. 
> 
> Updates will be every Monday and Thursday. The fic is already completed, and there are links on my social media if you'd like to read more or just get regular updates when I post!
> 
> Twitter: @vondrostes & @vondrostesupd8s  
Tumblr: @vondrostes

Jack caught himself tapping the floor with his foot for the third time in the last ten minutes and forced himself to stop. He wasn’t, as a rule, a nervous auditioner. That ability came as a natural consequence of his history in theatre, and usually, he showed up, showed off, had himself a gin at a nearby pub afterwards, and then waited patiently for a call-back—which he’d be lucky to get every three auditions out of ten.

Not this time.

It didn’t help that Jack was a virtual nobody in a sea of very recognisable faces—seemingly everyone sat in the audition hall waiting alongside him was someone he could easily put a name to. Jack had done some regional theatre in the last several years and a few BBC productions more recently, but he certainly wasn’t on the same level as any of the young men sat on either side of him, all of them vying for one of only three available parts.

Jack, who had arrived relatively early thanks to a tube schedule he had little control over, had very courteously sat himself exactly one seat over from one of the few people who had shown up before him. As the rest of the would-be auditioners filed into the hall, the other seats around him slowly filled up, but the one to Jack’s immediate left remained unclaimed according to the unwritten rules of waiting room etiquette.

Jack was content with that. The small measure of solitude calmed his nerves to some degree, though it wasn’t much of a defence against the remaining flood of anxiety churning in his stomach as he waited for his name to be called.

But then the main doors opened again, only a minute before the auditions were meant to officially begin. A lanky silhouette stood perfectly framed in the doorway, peering in curiously at the dozens of young men inside before entering. The approaching figure made a beeline for the seat next to Jack.

Jack stared up at the boy curiously as he walked over and sat down. His face was strikingly familiar, but Jack couldn’t quite place him as he approached. It was the beanie, Jack decided. It was throwing him off.

“Hi, I’m Harry,” the boy said with no hesitation whatsoever. He stuck out his hand for Jack to shake.

Jack extended his own automatically, realising only after he’d taken the boy’s hand where he recognised him from. Jack almost dropped his hand purely from shock. He would’ve had to have been living under a rock for the past five years to not know Harry Styles by reputation, at least, if not by face alone.

“Jack,” he replied a bit weakly, wondering just why on earth Harry Styles had chosen to speak to him at all. None of the others had so much as acknowledged his existence.

Harry seemed oblivious to Jack’s mental handwringing as he slouched back in his chair and crossed his arms over his chest. “Which part are you in for?” he asked, peering curiously at Jack from the corner of his eye.

“Pilot,” Jack replied after a brief pause. “You?”

“Tommy.” Harry wrinkled his nose exaggeratedly as he scanned the others waiting out in the hall with them, but Jack couldn’t read the exact emotion behind it. “Nervous?” he asked, turning to Jack again, and Jack wondered if it was really that obvious or if this was just Harry’s poor attempt at making small talk.

Before he could answer, the door at the opposite end of the hall opened, and an older woman poked her head out, squinting at the group of hopefuls. “Lowden?” she called out, and Jack hopped to his feet as his heart simultaneously jumped into his throat.

“Wait—” Harry said as Jack reached down to grab his bag, forcing him to pause on instinct. “D’you want to go out for a pint after this?” he asked.

Jack blinked at him. “Pardon?”

Harry tugged at one of Jack’s hands without reply, procuring a sharpie from out of nowhere and quickly scribbling something on the back of his hand. “The car’s out back,” he said with a soft smile. “Good luck in there.”

Jack wandered into the audition room in a daze, not quite sure if the encounter he’d had was even real.

Afterwards, he decided his audition was nothing to write home about and resigned himself to the fact that he probably wouldn’t get a call-back, even, much less the part itself. Part of him blamed Harry, his brain wanting to shift the responsibility from himself and his own nervousness to some kind of external distraction instead. And being invited out to a pub by England’s finest popstar was quite the distraction indeed.

Jack hovered in front of the rear doors leading out of the audition hall, staring down determinedly at the slightly smudged lettering on the back of his hand. It was clearly a license plate ID, not a phone number like Jack had initially thought. He supposed that made more sense, even if both were equally odd things to give out to someone you’d only just met.

The question now was whether Jack was actually going to take Harry up on his offer.

Jack deliberated for a moment, even letting the bloke who’d come out of the audition room after him walk past as he weighed his options. If Harry liked him enough already, for whatever reason, then going out for drinks could only help Jack’s career, right? Having a famous friend, even if it was some spoiled cunt from One Direction, had the potential to put Jack on the right path after years of trying and failing to break into an industry that was based on nepotism rather than talent.

His mind made, Jack hurried out the doors and into the ever-reliable London drizzle.

There was a car waiting just a bit further down the street, its rear licence plate visible to Jack even with the rain. Jack quickly matched it with the scribble Harry Styles had left on the back of his hand and walked a bit more purposefully as he approached the strange vehicle, feeling a bit on edge about the whole thing just before he opened the door to the backseat. Things only got worse when the driver whirled around just as Jack was climbing in, an expression of equal measures of shock and irritation pasted onto his face.

“Wrong car, mate,” the driver growled, startling Jack into meeting his eyes.

“No, I’m here for Harry,” Jack protested. He only realised his mistake when the driver pulled out his phone and waved it a bit threateningly.

“Five seconds to get out of the car,” the man told him. “Or I call the police.”

Jack froze momentarily and then moved to do as Harry’s driver had asked—demanded—not wanting to risk an altercation with police as a permanent black mark besmirching his reputation in the press. He could practically see the headline already. ‘Crazed One Direction Fan Crashes Christopher Nolan Audition and Tries to Kidnap Harry Styles’. Not exactly something Jack wanted to be known for when he was just on the verge of actually elevating his career in some capacity.

Jack opened the door to find Harry stood on the kerb right outside, his hand already outstretched toward the handle. Harry’s face brightened as he caught sight of Jack’s stunned expression, and he hopped right in alongside him in the backseat before Jack could exit the vehicle as he’d intended.

The driver looked between the two of them in blatant confusion. “Oh. I thought….”

Harry perked up, apparently realising the issue now that he was securely buckled into his seat. “Oh, right,” he said to the driver. “I tried to text you, but they called me in for my audition before I could finish.”

“Hi,” Jack said just a bit smugly now that his name had been cleared. He turned again to look at Harry, who was ever-so carefully adjusting the beanie on his head. Jack could see a few stray curls poking out of the bottom and had to curb the instinct to reach out and fix them himself. This was Harry Styles, not Calum or one of his cousins’ progeny.

Jack straightened up a bit, almost subconsciously trying to project a more alpha male façade for Harry’s benefit. Jack didn’t really know much about Harry besides that he was (probably) filthy rich and—according to the tabloids—had a string of ex-girlfriends wrapping around the entire globe, but Jack wasn’t going to take his chances with…whatever this was by slacking on the first impressions.

“Pub, then?” Harry asked cursorily. He didn’t bother waiting for an answer before rattling off a name Jack didn’t recognise to his driver, who quickly shifted gears and pulled out onto the street. “You weren’t waiting long, were you?”

Jack shook his head and pointedly avoided meeting the eyes of Harry’s driver in the rear-view mirror. “No, not too long,” he replied vaguely, deciding to omit the fact that he’d dithered outside for what had probably been the entirety of Harry’s audition. And speaking of which— “How’d you do, you think?” Jack wondered, more curious about how Harry would answer the question than whether he’d actually done well or not.

Harry scrunched up his nose and gave it a few moments thought. “Decent enough?” he replied, which was more of an honest response than Jack had been expecting. “Back entrance, please,” he said, briefly turning his attention back to the driver for a moment before resuming focus on Jack with his luminous green eyes, his wide-eyed stare unwavering. “What about you?”

Jack shrugged. “Not very well, if I’m honest,” he confessed, surprising even himself with how frank his answer had been. It was hard to even offer a lie of omission when Harry was staring at him so intently, as it turned out. “Definitely not my best audition by far; probably won’t get a call-back, but—it was a longshot anyhow, you know?”

Harry hummed sympathetically and finally turned away to examine the road ahead. “You can drop us off,” he told the driver as they pulled into a back alley just a few streets down from the building they’d just left. “I’ll text you when we’re ready to leave. That all right?”

He directed the question at Jack, who nodded despite the alarm bells in his brain telling him this was the worst idea he’d ever had. Getting drunk with one of the members of One Direction. If only Jodie could see him now.

The pub they’d pulled up to looked to be nothing more than a quaint little hole-in-the-wall from the street, but apparently appearances were deceiving. When Jack walked inside a few steps behind Harry, he was met with the sight of an interior far more posh than he’d expected, with an honest-to-god mezzanine bordered by a gilded railing overlooking the bar down below.

Jack allowed himself a second to marvel at the place, raising his eyebrows as he surveyed the airy space in wonder. When he turned his head toward Harry again, Harry was staring right back at him, the tiniest smile playing at the corners of his mouth.

“What do you want to drink?’ Harry asked, raising his voice just a little to be heard over the sound of the crowd.

Jack’s mind went blank. Maybe it was just paranoia, but the question almost felt like a test. “Beer’s fine,” he finally answered.

Harry’s face creased into something sceptical. “Just beer?”

Jack shrugged. “It’s a pub, innit?”

Harry just shook his head a bit as he turned around and moved deftly through the crowd to approach the counter. Jack watched from where he was stood as Harry managed to get a barmaid’s attention within seconds of sidling up to her, despite the throngs of people that had been waiting to be served before Harry had even walked in. Evidently, not all of those tabloid rumours about Harry’s charm had been exaggerated, then.

When Harry spun around again, his hands were still empty, but he was using them now to beckon Jack closer.

Jack moved forward hesitantly. He still wasn’t sure of what was happening when Harry unexpectedly made a sharp left as Jack got closer, changing directions to follow a man in black uniform toward the stairs at the far end of the pub. Jack trailed after them for lack of further instruction and was only a little bit surprised when the man in uniform pulled aside a velvet rope at the foot of the stairs to let them through.

Harry skipped up the stairs ahead of Jack but stopped abruptly at the very top, where there was a cosy arrangement of sofas and plush chairs. He sat down and looked up promptly at Jack as if imploring him to do the same. Jack sat down on one of the chairs and glanced around at their surroundings, wondering where in the hell their drinks were. He could already tell he’d need the alcohol to get through the rest of the night in one piece.

Harry laughed like he could read Jack’s thoughts. “They’re setting up a table for us,” he informed Jack.

“Oh.” Jack frowned. “Never been to a pub with VIP club service,” he remarked, hoping it didn’t sound as bitter to Harry as it did to his own ears.

Harry stretched his arms over his head, allowing his t-shirt to ride up just enough that Jack could make out the shadow of ink against his skin just below the hem. “Not missing much,” he replied. “Just thought we could take full advantage of having a spot of privacy.”

Jack’s eyes widened a bit at that, at just how much it sounded like Harry was propositioning him, but Harry didn’t even seem to notice.

Finally, the uniformed man came back to retrieve them. Jack followed Harry’s cues as they got up from the lounging area before following the other man down the narrow walkway on the mezzanine, lined with warmly lit alcoves where others were already drinking and talking.

“Actually, I don’t know that I’d really even call this place a pub,” Jack admitted (contrary to his earlier point) as they were led past dozens of people who were far too well-dressed to frequent any establishment that labelled itself as such.

“What would you call it, then?” Harry asked, turning his head slightly to examine Jack’s expression from over his shoulder.

Jack didn’t have a good answer. It was set up more like a club, but the atmosphere was all wrong for that. Despite the level of pretension the place exuded from every nook and cranny— “All right, I’d probably call it a pub,” he finally conceded just as the man in uniform finally stopped in front of a vacant alcove.

Harry laughed and slid into one side of the booth, his rings clinking against the wood as he settled into his seat while Jack followed suit. Harry tipped the man who’d led them there and then he was gone, vanished as though he’d been nothing more than a silent-but-helpful spirit.

“Scotch?” Jack asked with an incredulous laugh upon seeing the label of the bottle on the table that had been prepared for them. It was only the first thing that had caught his eye, but upon further perusal, he noticed that they’d been well-supplied with gin, tequila, and vodka, too, as well as an assortment of mixers next to the ice machine built into the wall between the cushioned seats. It was all very comfortable in a distinctly uncomfortable way; Jack had never felt more out of place than he did now.

Jack helped himself to a gin and tonic to give his hands something to do. And mouth, once the drink was finished.

Harry poured himself tequila over ice, and Jack couldn’t help but wonder if the choice was actually based on Harry’s own preferences, or whether it was simply a show of bravado for Jack’s benefit. Harry’s expression betrayed nothing when he lifted the drink to his lips to take a delicate sip.

“So you don’t think you’ll get the part?” Harry questioned as soon as he lowered his glass. “Well, _a_ part, I suppose.”

Now that they were in a quieter part of the pub, in a place that presented adequate privacy and just enough sound-proofing to allow them to converse at a normal volume level, Jack noticed that Harry’s voice sounded markedly different than it had earlier when they’d first met, and then in the car, when he’d still been pitching his tone down an octave from his natural speaking voice, like he too had been making a subtle effort at impressing Jack.

Jack filed that information away for later analysis and tried to focus on Harry himself, which was easier said than done since making eye contact with the lad was sort of like staring directly into a laser beam. Jack picked up his drink again as an excuse to break his gaze and struggled to come up with an answer that wouldn’t make him sound either cocky or pathetic.

“It’s my first audition for such a big film,” he finally confessed. “And it probably wasn’t my best audition. So no, I’d be surprised if I got it.”

Harry nodded but didn’t reply, like he was expecting more to follow Jack’s answer.

Jack surprised even himself when he opened his mouth to oblige, an unexpected string of words flowing uncontrollably out of his mouth. He wasn’t even drunk yet. “I started out doing theatre,” he explained. “But I’ve done some screen acting recently, and my agent thought it’d be a good gig since they’re looking for less established blokes, you know? Younger guys. I was actually surprised when I walked in and recognised more than half the people auditioning ‘cos I didn’t think there’d be many big names to compete with.” Jack winced, remembering whose company he was currently in. “No offence, mate.”

“None taken,” Harry replied pleasantly. “So you only sent in a tape because of your agent, then?”

Jack winced again. “Well, no,” he admitted. “I mean, I wouldn’t be too upset about breaking into bigger films. The paycheque wouldn’t hurt, for one. And I do actually quite like historical theatre.”

Harry nodded. He blinked slowly, almost sleepily, as he nursed his tequila. “But you said this isn’t your first film, right?” he asked. He seemed genuinely interested, which surprised Jack, who was already regretting his decision to bitch about his lack of recognition to one of England’s biggest rising stars. “Would I have seen you in anything?”

“Probably not,” Jack replied. “The only shite that’s already come out were bit parts; the other stuff’s indie. But I suppose there’s nothing wrong with a slow climb.”

“No,” Harry said. “Nothing wrong with that.” His gaze was just as intense as before, and Jack found himself looking away again almost as soon as their eyes met. “I think you’ll get the part, though.”

Jack scoffed. “What makes you say that?”

Harry shrugged. “I dunno,” he replied, sounding a little bashful even as he did so. “Just seems like you have that leading man charm, I suppose.”

“You know it’s not a romcom, right?” Jack replied, quirking an eyebrow up in incredulity.

Harry busted out into a full-bodied laugh at that and nearly spilled his drink onto the sleek hardwood table top. “My agent said the same thing when I told him I wanted to go for the part in Dunkirk,” he said, still-grinning. “But really, not even a call-back? You thought it went that badly?”

Jack wasn’t sure why Harry was so hyper-focussed on Jack’s failed audition of all things, but he decided to play along. “Sometimes the quality of the audition doesn’t matter so much,” he finally admitted. “I honestly stopped thinking I had a shot the second I saw who I was up against.”

Harry looked a bit scandalised. “You didn’t bomb it on purpose, did you?” he demanded, sounding far too invested in the situation for someone Jack had literally just met.

“No, of course not,” Jack reassured him. He squeezed his glass tighter, the tips of his fingers slipping against the condensation forming on the outside under the heat of his grip. “But when it comes to bigger films, names tend to carry a bit more weight than talent, you know?” It was impossible to keep the bitterness from leaching into his voice as he uttered the last statement, but to Harry’s credit, he didn’t seem bothered by the social faux pas. “Sorry,” Jack added. “You don’t need to hear about all this. I’m just a bit—frustrated, is all.”

“I did ask,” Harry pointed out with a soft smile.

Harry lifted his own glass again, draining the remaining contents in one go. There was a flush in his cheeks that hadn’t been there to start with, a haziness in his eyes that Jack had no doubt would be reflected in his own by the time they left the pub. Moderation had never really been a part of his vocabulary.

“You did,” Jack replied.

There was a long silence after that, and for a moment Jack thought he must have said something wrong. But Harry just stared, half-drunkenly, his eyes still as big as the moon as he looked at Jack.

“Can I tell you something?” Harry said suddenly. “A secret,” he added before Jack even had a chance to respond.

“Yeah,” Jack answered. “Of course.” He felt a bit breathless with the anticipation of what Harry was going to tell him, even more so when Harry reached across the table to pull him in close enough that Harry’s lips were hovering right next to Jack’s ear.

“I know people,” Harry whispered. His speech was too slurred to come off as properly intimidating, but Jack found himself shivering anyway. “If you tell anyone, they won’t find the body.” He giggled a bit after he’d said it, ruining any attempt at the illusion of seriousness, but Jack’s nod was every bit as earnest as if they’d both been stone-cold sober while having this conversation.

“I won’t tell,” Jack promised. And he meant it, despite the fact that Harry was a complete stranger to him still.

Finally, Harry pulled away. Jack’s promise seemed to have assured him that they could have the rest of their conversation at a normal human volume, no mouths on ears required. Harry reached for the tequila again and poured himself another glass. Jack didn’t stop him.

“You shouldn’t want to be famous,” Harry said with a frown, a deep line creased between his brows.

It was so unexpected that for a moment, Jack thought Harry must have been too drunk to remember what he was planning to confess. Jack felt a bit disappointed about that. “Why not?” he asked, even while thinking to himself that it was a bit rich of Harry of all people to say that. “It seems like you don’t mind it,” Jack added with a sweeping gesture toward their table and the array of alcohol at their side.

Harry’s frown shifted into a smile, but it was one that didn’t quite meet his eyes. “It has its perks, yeah,” he replied. “But there’s a price that comes with it, too.”

“Don’t tell me they made you become part of the Illuminati,” Jack replied with a laugh.

The smile slowly slid off Harry’s face as he traced a finger around the lip of his glass. He shook his head. “No,” he said flatly. “Not that kind of price.” He frowned down at his half-empty glass. “It’s the kind you don’t really think about until you’re in a pub with a good-looking bloke that you can’t try to pull because you know someone might see.” Harry’s eyes flicked up to meet Jack’s again, and this time his stare was even more intense.

Jack found himself transfixed, speechless, and wondering if this was Harry’s way of flirting. Eventually, he decided they were both too drunk for him to make an appropriate judgment.

“Is it really that big of a deal still?” Jack asked instead. “In 2016?”

Harry nodded slowly. “According to my management and the label, at least,” he replied quietly. “Puts a bit of a damper on your dating life when you can’t even tell someone you’re interested in them because it might get out.” He glanced down at his glass and then back up at Jack again in quick succession, his eyes suddenly wide and panicked like he realised he’d just spilled his darkest secrets to someone he’d met less than a few hours ago.

“I won’t say anything,” Jack assured him once more.

For a moment, it looked like Harry might smile again, but then his face darkened, and he looked back down at his drink, even more pensive than before.

“I suppose you win the sob story competition,” Jack offered lightly as he reached for the bottle of scotch between them and pulled out two clean glasses as well. “We should celebrate.”

“Whiskey doesn’t seem too celebratory,” Harry pointed out, but he accepted the glass Jack poured for him without complaint.

“Then I guess we’re mourning instead,” Jack replied. He swallowed his drink with a wince and slammed the glass back down onto the table just in time to watch as Harry did the same. His eyes lingered on Harry’s mouth, red as he swiped the back of his hand across it and then even redder after. Jack squeezed his eyes shut for a moment to try to collect himself, and when he opened them again, Harry looked even more melancholy than before. “Maybe we should call it a night,” Jack decided.

Harry nodded and didn’t utter a word in protest. He climbed out of his seat quickly and reached for the wallet in his back pocket before Jack could think to do the same. “Tab’s taken care of,” Harry said casually.

Jack didn’t even want to think about what their round of drinks had cost at a place like this. There’d been no question about the quality of the liquor even though Jack hadn’t taken more than a cursory glance at the labels. The scotch alone would probably have bankrupted him. But Jack was nothing if not a gentleman.

“You can’t cover the tab and the tip,” Jack argued as he rummaged in his coat for his own wallet. “Besides, you’re even drunker than I am. It wouldn’t be fair.”

“I’m richer, too,” Harry replied belligerently as he stuffed a few crisp notes under their empty glasses.

Jack couldn’t argue with that.

They met Harry’s driver out back in the same place where they’d been dropped off. Jack had been half-expecting to walk out the side door and find himself amidst a sea of paparazzi and flashing cameras awaiting Harry’s covert exit from the pub, but he was disappointed when he stepped outside into the silent night air with only the headlamps from Harry’s car to light the way.

Harry followed closely behind Jack as they made their way to the car, but he seemed just as subdued, if not more. Neither made any attempt at conversation after they climbed into the backseat together. The only words Jack spoke were to the driver himself, after being asked for the address of his London flat, which was nearly an hour away.

Jack settled back against the seat when they started to pull back onto the road and sighed, steeling himself for an awkward ride with Harry sat next to him, still silent as the grave.

Jack wasn’t expecting to look over at Harry less than ten minutes later and find him passed out with his head lolling back and mouth open, evidently on the verge of snoring right there in the back of the car in front of someone he didn’t even know. Jack shook his head and turned his attention back to the road ahead.

Harry’s weight dropping down against Jack’s shoulder a few minutes later was even more of a surprise. Jack jolted at first, shying away automatically and causing Harry to flop down in his lap instead. Jack froze, sure that Harry would wake up then and realise the precarious situation he’d found himself in, but he didn’t. Nor did he wake up a little less than an hour later when the driver finally pulled up in front of Jack’s flat, forcing Jack to gently dislodge Harry from his lap so he could climb out.

Jack lingered there on the kerb with the door open for just a second too long, staring at Harry’s sleeping face pressed against the leather seats until the curious gaze of Harry’s driver diverted his eyes. “Sorry,” he muttered, feeling his face go hot at being caught out openly staring at the man’s employer. Jack scrambled to think of an excuse. “Just didn’t want to forget my phone or anything.”

Jack quickly rushed inside after that and pointedly avoided looking back at the car when he walked through the front doors to his building. Once upstairs and safely secure in his own flat, he immediately busied himself with the pre-bed ritual of sobering up, which involved three glasses of water and a cup of tea, none of which had the desired effect but were at least a little bit effective in stopping the room from spinning.

Jack was wrung out when he finally dropped into bed a little while later, freshly showered and a little less drunk than he’d been when he arrived, but still feeling strangely hollow. He’d forgotten something after all, he realised. He hadn’t asked for Harry’s number, nor offered his own. He wasn’t sure why that simple fact was so disappointing, but the regret haunted him until he finally drifted off to sleep.


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Twitter: @vondrostes & @vondrostesupd8s  
Tumblr: @vondrostes

Jack woke up to the sound of heavy pounding echoing inside his head. It took him a few moments before he regained his senses enough to realise that the noise wasn’t actually emanating from within his skull, but instead coming from the front door to his flat.

Jack sat up and rubbed at his eyes, trying to force himself into a passable semblance of consciousness as the insistent knocking at his door continued without pause. Whoever was on the other side clearly wasn’t planning on going away anytime soon. Best case scenario: it was his landlord, here to bother him about a flat-showing or some other such nonsense that Jack couldn’t be arsed to care about. Worst case: it was the neighbour across the hall back to complain about the late-night noises that weren’t even Jack’s fault.

He trudged out of his bedroom and into the main room of his miniscule flat to answer the door in just his boxers and a t-shirt. When he opened the door, there was a strange woman stood on the other side, dressed in a highly professional pantsuit, and for a moment, Jack wondered if he was about to be abruptly evicted from his flat.

The woman looked Jack up and down with no small measure of distaste. “Get dressed,” she said without so much as a greeting first. “We need to leave right now.”

“What?” Jack replied. He wasn’t sure he’d even heard her correctly.

The woman sighed and closed her eyes for a second. “Didn’t Harry tell you I was on my way here?” she asked.

Jack blinked at her in disbelief. His gut lurched at the mention of Harry, whose existence he’d almost successfully forgotten thanks to his hangover. Even just hearing his name had sent all the events of the previous night surging right back into Jack’s brain, reminding him of what a colossal failure the whole day had been.

And now he had to deal with this.

“Suppose you better come in, then,” Jack said as he rubbed tiredly at his face, futilely attempting to break through the haze of sleep that still plagued him. He opened the door wider to let the woman—who still had yet to properly introduce herself—into his flat to wait so that he could duck back into his bedroom and get himself sorted.

Jack closed the door behind him and paused right there in the entrance to his bedroom, his heart rate ratcheting up as the reality of the situation he was in finally hit. He still didn’t know why someone was stood in his flat on Harry’s behalf, but whatever the reason, it couldn’t be good.

He checked his phone first; sure enough, there was a message from his agent informing him that Harry Styles had asked for his contact information. Above that, a text from an unknown number: _This is Harry. Sorry to drag you into my mess, but something happened and I’m in a bit of a pickle. My publicist should be by soon to bring you up to speed._

Jack dropped his phone back onto the bed with a sigh and slowly moved toward his closet to pick out a halfway decent outfit that wouldn’t make him look like a slob next to the woman waiting for him. He was lucky he’d just had the bulk of his clothes laundered a few days before; usually he was much more limited in his options thanks to the fact that it was such a pain to have his clothes washed when he didn’t have a machine or a car at his disposal.

Once dressed, Jack walked back out of his bedroom to find the woman from before stood exactly in the same spot he’d left her, now with her arms crossed over her chest as she tapped her foot impatiently against the rug.

“Ready to go?” she asked.

“Where?” Jack shot back.

“Modest Management’s offices in London,” the woman replied with a scowl. “Harry was meant to explain all of this to you before I got here.”

“Funny,” Jack replied, pulling his phone out again to show her the text Harry had sent. “Apparently, he expected you to do that.”

Harry’s publicist examined the text with an exasperated sigh. “Look,” she said as she raised her eyes to meet Jack’s once again, “we’re short on time right now, so if you don’t mind, the explanations will have to wait until we get to the office. Harry will be there, along with his manager, and I’ll be happy to explain everything then. All right?”

Jack nodded, mostly because he wasn’t sure what other option he had. It didn’t seem like a great idea to throw Harry’s publicist out of his flat, even if so far she’d only been an insufferably cryptic nag.

Jack didn’t bother to ask the woman her name before getting into the black SUV that was waiting outside the building for them when they walked out. In fact, he said nothing at all to her for the entire journey into central London, too caught up in his own thoughts to bother with trying to make conversation to ease the heavy silence.

Jack spent most of the drive worrying that he’d unintentionally committed some sort of celebrity faux-pas and would now be blacklisted from ever working in the industry again—or something even worse, maybe, if it required a face-to-face meeting with Harry himself. Jack hadn’t drunk that much, he thought. He certainly hadn’t vomited on Harry’s shoes or felt him up or anything else he could possibly think of that would have warranted this type of response.

But then again, Harry had said it was _his_ mess in the text. That he was in a pickle. Jack scowled harder as he stared out the window, wracking his brain for any explanation for why Harry would possibly require his help to no avail.

Their destination was located in a large looming office building in the heart of the city, and inside was a lobby teeming with well-dressed people who moved out of the way with a smile for Harry’s publicist while refusing to even acknowledge Jack’s existence as they passed.

The lift ride up to the tenth floor felt even more agonisingly long than the drive had, like the closer Jack was to Harry, the slower time moved. Jack was barely keeping it together by the time the doors opened into a sterile-white hallway, empty except for Jack himself and Harry’s publicist. Her heels clacked loudly against the tile flooring as she led the way down to the double doors at the opposite end of the corridor, framed on all sides by thick panes of frosted glass, too opaque to make out anything on the other side.

The first thing Jack saw when the doors opened was a long mane of brown curly hair, startlingly unfamiliar until its owner turned around and Jack realised it belonged to Harry. The mystery then became how Harry had managed to contain the wild mass of curls inside a beanie the day before.

Harry nodded at Jack as he entered the conference room; Jack nodded back and took a seat in the chair indicated to him by Harry’s publicist, who sat down across the table from Harry and began to tap furiously at her phone as soon as she was stationary.

“Harry’s not here yet?” the woman asked confusingly, finally looking up with a frown to meet Harry’s eyes.

Harry shook his head. “He said fifteen minutes when I talked to him half an hour ago, so he’ll probably be at least another five. Maybe ten.”

Harry’s publicist made a quiet sound of displeasure and glanced back down at her phone again to resume whatever it was she was doing. Jack just watched her work, since it was better than staring at Harry instead, or trying to cut through the tense atmosphere with small talk. He had a feeling asking about the weather wouldn’t help to diminish the awkwardness that had permeated the room since the very first moment he’d walked in.

Finally, Jack couldn’t help himself any longer. He looked up, finding Harry’s gaze trained on where his hands were folded on top of the table instead as he stared down, looking subdued but less hungover than Jack would have expected.

There was a quiet buzz emanating from Harry all of a sudden. His frown deepened as he reached into his pocket and pulled out his own phone. Plain black case, Jack observed as Harry thumbed over the screen with a furrowed brow. No personality at all.

“Harry said he’s not going to make it,” Harry said without warning, his molasses-slow voice oozing into the cracks in the claustrophobic silence enclosing the three of them now. When he didn’t receive a response, Harry looked up at his publicist with an annoyed expression. “Pam,” he said a bit more insistently. “Harry just texted me. He said he’s not going to make it.”

The publicist, Pam, finally looked up, her finger hovering over the screen of her own phone. “He was the one who wanted to arrange the meeting.”

“I know,” Harry replied tiredly. “He said to brief him about it later. Something came up, I guess.” There was a bitter tinge to his voice that made Jack think this was a fairly common occurrence, and obviously not one Harry was thrilled about.

Pam sighed deeply and continued to mess with her phone for a minute before sliding the device across the table toward Jack, her eyes cool and calculating as she appraised his reaction. “That’s from last night,” she told him.

Jack picked up the phone and peered at the screen. There was a photo pulled up—not a very good one—but it was clear enough that Jack could make out his own profile, framed against Harry’s as Harry whispered in his ear. The moment at the pub, he realised. Someone had photographed them.

In reality, nothing had happened between them—physically, at least—but the angle of the photo made it all look frighteningly intimate, like Harry had been kissing his neck in public for anyone to see—and document for the rest of the world, evidently.

Jack looked up at Pam with a frown and handed the phone back to her with a raised eyebrow.

“You haven’t seen any of the headlines, then?” Pam asked him.

Jack shook his head. “You woke me up right before we came here,” he pointed out.

Pam sighed again. “’Harry Styles cavorts with mysterious beau in cosy London pub’,” she recited dully. “Repeated ad infinitum on half a dozen tabloid sites and all over social media. No one knows who you are, which thus far has only made things even worse, since no one is even bothering to draw the conclusion that your meeting was professional in nature.” Her eyes were piercing as she stared straight at Jack. “The photo certainly doesn’t help.”

“And that’s my fault?” Jack asked. He was annoyed right off the bat that Pam had insinuated he was a nobody—nobody noteworthy, at least. It wasn’t as if he hadn’t told himself the same thing time and time again, but it stung hearing it from someone who had been hired to represent the likes of Harry Styles.

Harry coughed lightly in response to Jack’s question but didn’t say a word.

“Whose fault it is doesn’t matter,” Pam replied carefully. “It’s still a problem that I have to fix.”

Jack shook his head and glanced over at Harry, who was staring down at his hands again, apparently unwilling or maybe just too afraid to meet Jack’s eyes. “I don’t see what that has to do with me.”

“If you’d be quiet for a moment, I’d be happy to explain,” Pam snapped.

Jack saw Harry’s head pop up at last, but still he said nothing as he surveyed the tense stand-off between Jack and Pam.

“It’s an image problem,” Pam finally continued. “Modest is permitting Harry to be a bit more lax about how he’s presented to the public because of his plans to pivot his music, but it’s still important to them that he be marketed a certain way.”

Harry muttered something under his breath that Jack couldn’t make out.

“Okay…” Jack said slowly. “And?”

“And,” Pam continued, her eyes flashing, “this photo seriously compromises that.”

There was a loud screech as Harry suddenly shoved his chair back. When Jack looked over at him, Harry was staring straight at Pam, his expression unreadable. “Can I have a moment alone with him?” he asked in a quiet voice.

For a moment, it looked like Pam might refuse, but finally she gave a tight nod and stood up, exiting the conference room without another word uttered between them.

There was a heavy silence that descended in her absence. It took Harry several seconds to break it. “I’m sorry about all this, I didn’t think—” Harry stopped himself. “Things are a bit precarious for me right now with the transition to a new arrangement with management and the whole—well, you know.”

Jack didn’t know what he meant, not at all, but he’d already pin-pointed the most important part of Harry’s apology. “When is your contract up for renegotiation?” he asked.

“What?” Harry glanced up in surprise. His fist, which he’d been clenching and unclenching for most of the meeting, suddenly ceased its repetitive motions.

“Your contract,” Jack repeated patiently. “When does it expire?”

“About two weeks from now.” Harry’s answer was almost automatic, as if the countdown loomed omnipresent in the back of his mind. It probably did, Jack realised, if the managers he was currently stuck with were this strict about how he was portrayed in the media. Jack might have been drunk the night before, but he hadn’t drunk enough to forget what Harry had confessed to him shortly after the incriminating picture of the two of them had been taken.

“Why don’t you just let it lapse?” Jack suggested. He scooted back a bit in his chair, as though afraid of Harry’s possible reaction to his idea. “I mean,” he started before Harry could squeeze in anything more than a concentrated frown, “you clearly don’t like being closeted for the sake of your bad boy popstar image, right? Why not find someone new who won’t bother with all that shit?”

Harry’s frown deepened even further. “It’s not that easy,” he shot back. “I’ll get a better deal for a solo contract with the label if I keep our old managers on,” he added, sounding perfectly miserable about it all. “And I don’t want to mess about with switching companies halfway through the audition process for the film.”

“I mean, you have two weeks to make a decision,” Jack reminded him. “Maybe you should look into it in the meantime. See what your options are. Surely, there’s something out there that’s better than—” He waved a hand about vaguely. “—This.”

Harry sucked his lower lip in between his teeth and considered Jack’s proposal. After a long moment, he nodded. “Fine,” he said. “I’ll think about it.”

He opened his mouth to add something else after, but was interrupted before he could get out another syllable by Pam re-entering the conference room, this time with an older man in tow. Jack wondered if it was the other Harry that they’d been conversing about earlier.

His question was answered in the negative a few seconds later when the man stepped over to him and extended a hand for Jack to take. “Richard Griffiths,” he said by way of introduction. “And you are?”

Jack felt another wave of irritation wash over him at the fact that he apparently wasn’t important enough for any of Harry’s people to even bother learning his name. “Jack Lowden,” he replied in a measured voice.

“Sorry to drag you into all this, Jack,” Griffiths said in an overly familiar tone as he sat down next to Pam without so much as acknowledging Harry’s presence. “We like to run a tight ship, though, so if you wouldn’t mind signing a few things before you leave?”

Suddenly, Pam was sliding a sheet of paper across the table toward Jack. Harry’s eyes followed its progress, focussing on Jack’s hands as he lifted the page up to get a better look at it.

It was a non-disclosure agreement, he realised with a little jolt of surprise. Jack couldn’t stop himself from glancing over at Harry, their eyes meeting for a fraction of a second before both looked away again.

A tight ship, his arse, Jack thought to himself. They practically had Harry on lockdown. Was this what being mega-famous was actually like?

“The terms specify that you won’t talk about the nature of your meeting with Harry at the pub,” Pam supplied helpfully. She sounded a bit worried, like she thought Jack would refuse to sign if she didn’t explain. “Or the nature of what was discussed here, or what you and Harry spoke about last night.”

Jack glanced up at her again, wondering if she knew exactly what that conversation entailed. But her professional demeanour won out; it was impossible to tell from her expression exactly how much she knew about what Harry had told him.

Pam slid a pen across the table. “It’s a very standard NDA,” she added.

Jack nodded and continued to stare down at the form, skimming the blocks of text for anything that might stand out. He wondered if Harry would prefer it if he didn’t sign after all, or if it would just make things worse if Jack didn’t cooperate.

“There is compensation involved, of course,” Pam said, sounding a bit desperate now.

Jack didn’t bother to look up at her as he scribbled his signature near the bottom of the page. “I don’t want the money,” he told her, sliding the form back across the table with an irritable flair.

Even Harry looked surprised by his refusal, and Jack had to wonder just how many times Harry had been in this situation before.

“Is that everything?” Jack asked once the silence that followed his statement had stretched on a bit too long for comfort.

Pam nodded, but Griffiths, it seemed, wasn’t quite finished. “We’d like you to stay off the radar as much as possible in the next few weeks,” he said in a sickly smooth voice that reminded Jack unpleasantly of a politician. “Just until the press dies down. We don’t want to risk someone identifying you from the photo and stirring up any more rumours. Is that going to be a problem?”

Jack shook his head, even though every cell in his body wanted to say yes just to be contrarian about it. There was something deeply unpleasant about the man sat across from him, and Jack couldn’t believe that Harry was even the slightest bit willing to put himself back under Griffiths’ thumb for how many more years just for the sake of maintaining his career. “Not at all,” he added, just in case verbal confirmation was necessary as well.

There were no goodbyes exchanged between Jack and Harry as Pam led Jack back out of the conference room, leaving Harry alone inside with Griffiths. Harry didn’t even look up as Jack passed, making Jack wonder if they were both making a huge mistake.

Pam called Jack a cab and sent him downstairs on his own to meet it. Jack went home in a daze, feeling upset and disoriented for reasons he couldn’t begin to identify. As soon as he was back in his flat, Jack went to the kitchen to make himself a cup of tea and pulled out his phone once the kettle was on. His maw answered after a few rings, her voice as predictably worried as ever from the second she picked up.

“I’m fine,” Jack reassured her, even though this time, the statement was no longer true. “I was actually just thinking about coming home for a bit.”

His flight to Scotland was booked within the hour, his bags packed before noon. He was on a flight out shortly after dinner, and asleep in his childhood bed by midnight, all thoughts of Harry Styles and the mess he’d found himself in erased for now by the familiar sights and sounds of his home in the Borders.


	3. Chapter 3

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Twitter: @vondrostes & @vondrostesupd8s  
Tumblr: @vondrostes

Jack had almost forgotten about everything that had happened less than a week ago in the haze of comfort food and idle enjoyment at home with his parents, a far cry from the lonely life he lived in London when he was scrounging for any work he could get. Before Jack had rented out his flat, he’d filled his mind with fantasies of living a glamourous life in the heart of the city, being invited to parties and brushing elbows with the film industry’s elites. The reality had been a lot more soul-crushing.

Jack actually enjoyed his time at home now, whereas during his school years he’d come to resent the place. He’d worried the first time he came back that the feeling of slow suffocation would abruptly return, bogged down by all the memories the house still held, but it hadn’t been like that at all. Jack had gotten a fresh start somehow when he’d moved out.

Jack was at the dinner table with his parents when his phone suddenly went off. He met his father’s eyes, a fork raised halfway to his mouth as the loud buzzing filled the room. Jack held his da’s gaze for a moment and tried to wait it out, but the buzzing continued without pause. Finally, Jack set his fork down with a sigh and pushed his chair out to leave the table.

Jack took his phone out to the back garden, barely glancing at the screen to find a UK number he didn’t recognise flashing across it before answering. “Hello?” he ventured. He kept his tone professional, despite the exasperation building up behind the greeting. It was far too late to be getting calls of any kind from within the country, and there was no one in particular that Jack was expecting to hear back from anyway. Thus far, there’d been radio silence from the Dunkirk casting director, and Jack was expecting an email in that regard anyway, not a phone call.

“Well, you didn’t change your number,” said Harry’s voice on the other end, so unexpected that Jack nearly dropped his phone onto the grass. “So that’s a good sign at least.”

“Do people often change their phone numbers after meeting you?” Jack replied quickly, his voice just barely on the edge of composed. The last person in the world he’d expected to hear from again was Harry Styles, but here he was, chatting to Jack on the phone like they were mates, like the debacle at his management’s office hadn’t even happened.

“After signing paperwork they might do,” Harry shot back in a jovial tone, undoing Jack’s assumptions just like that.

Jack didn’t respond right away. He waited a few seconds for Harry to elaborate on the reason he’d rung, but when the silence started to lengthen into something uncomfortable, he finally spoke up. “Is something wrong?” he asked. “You don’t need me to sign something else, do you?” Jack wasn’t worried that he’d somehow violated the terms of the NDA he’d signed because he hadn’t breathed a word about even meeting Harry to anyone—not Jodie, not his family, nobody. But that just further served to deepen the mystery behind Harry reaching out all of a sudden.

“Are you in London?” Harry replied without properly answering. “We need to meet.”

Jack’s face pulled into a reflexive scowl even though Harry couldn’t see it. “I’m in Scotland,” he said curtly. “With my family. Lying low, remember?”

Harry ignored the jab. “Well, I’m booking you a first-class flight back to Heathrow in the morning,” he responded in a casual tone.

Jack could hear the sound of computer keys clacking in the background. Clearly, it wasn’t a bluff. “You can’t just—” Jack started to say, but stopped abruptly when he realised that yes, Harry could just do whatever he wanted. The boy had probably never been told no in his entire life. “What’s so important that we need to meet tomorrow?” Jack asked instead. He closed his eyes and breathed in deeply through his nose in an effort to keep composed.

“Nothing,” Harry said quickly. “Well—it’s just better if we speak about it in person is all.” There was a brief pause on the other end of the line. The sound of Harry’s keyboard had gone silent. “I could fly to Scotland instead?” Harry offered out of the blue. “Should I book for Edinburgh or Glasgow?”

Jack had to reach up and pinch the bridge of his nose tightly to keep from saying something he knew he’d regret later. More than being bossed around, Jack hated being pandered to. And there was something about the sincerity in Harry’s voice that made him seethe just that much more. “It’s fine,” Jack bit out. “I’ll meet you in London.” Silently, Jack was congratulating himself on allowing Harry to successfully manipulate him into doing exactly what he wanted, but Jack managed to keep that part to himself.

“Great,” Harry said brightly, as though utterly oblivious to the resigned tone of Jack’s voice. “Text me your location details and email address, and I’ll send over the ticket confirmation.”

Jack grumbled out an unenthusiastic agreement before hanging up. He lowered his phone and looked down at it in his hand, wondering if he should go to the trouble of changing his number now that he was apparently at Harry’s beck and call.

Jack headed back inside with a sigh. His parents were still sat at the table, both wearing curious expressions on their faces. That was to be expected from his mother, who had always taken care to seem interested in Jack’s life, but Jack was used to nothing but resounding indifference from his father.

“Work thing,” Jack explained vaguely as he sat back down again. “I’m flying back to London in the morning.”

“Oh,” his maw said in surprise. “It’s good news, though, aye?”

Jack shrugged without looking up to meet her eyes. “Not sure yet.”

Sleep eluded him later that night, once he’d climbed under the sheets in the darkness only to find his head filled with thoughts about what Harry wanted from him.

As he lay there in bed, flat on his back and staring up blindly at the ceiling, Jack wondered what would happen if he simply decided not to show up at the airport the next morning. It wasn’t like he was being summoned by the Queen herself. Surely, he still had a choice in the matter. But then again, there was his career to consider, and Jack had no doubt that Harry Styles had more than sufficient resources at his disposal to jeopardise any upward trajectory Jack might have been working towards with just a snap of his fingers. Popstars, he mused bitterly. They had all the power.

By the time Jack’s alarm went off early the next morning, he’d managed to catch a few fitful hours of sleep in between tossing and turning and obsessing about what was to come.

The ride to the airport in his da’s car was fraught with tension. Jack hardly dared to breathe as they made their way into the city, and when his father finally turned to address him as they got closer to their destination, Jack started to mull over the pros and cons of jumping out of the car and just sprinting the rest of the way.

“You know, if things aren’t working out…” his da started to say.

Jack didn’t know how to explain that currently, his problems had nothing to do with finding work. Besides which, they’d had this conversation before. A number of times, when jobs had been even more scarce, and Jack hadn’t backed down then, so he wasn’t sure exactly what his da was hoping for now.

“I’m fine,” he said shortly. “My rent’s paid out for a few more months, so it’s not a big deal if I don’t get the role.” That was a lie, but only in the sense that it would be a blow for Jack to not even get a call-back after his audition, even though he’d told Harry already that he wasn’t expecting one. He could never quite quash the tiny smidgeon of hope that burned brightly in the back of his mind, everly optimistic despite the odds.

“Well, we’re wishing you the best,” his da replied in a stiff voice. He’d never been one for expressing his emotions, either.

“Thanks.”

It was all that was said for the remainder of the drive, aside from a hasty exchange of goodbyes as Jack was dropped off in front of his terminal with little time to spare for getting through to his gate. Part of him was hoping that something would go awry and that he’d have an excuse to miss the flight, if only to short Harry Styles out a few hundred pounds and inconvenience him a bit in the process.

Ironically enough, Jack ended up having the smoothest transition through security he’d ever experienced in his life, and he made it to the gate with plenty of time to spare. First class ended up being every bit as luxurious as he’d expected, but the creature comforts didn’t do anything to dispel the maelstrom of anxiety swirling around and around in the pit of Jack’s stomach. He turned to alcohol to fix that instead.

In hindsight, getting drunk on the flight to London right before his impending meeting with Harry wasn’t one of Jack’s best ideas, but he was only still mildly buzzed when he stepped off the plane, so he decided to consider that a win.

There was a man in a plain black suit waiting for Jack at Heathrow with a sign held just above his head, the name ‘Lowden’ printed on it in bold, black lettering. Jack glanced around himself as if expecting to find someone else with his name before finally approaching the man with caution, still not entirely convinced that the sign was meant for him.

“Harry sent you?” Jack ventured in a quiet voice.

The man nodded and lowered the sign. “I’ll be taking you straight to the office for a meeting,” he informed Jack. “This way, please.”

It was all very clear-cut and professional in a way that made Jack’s skin crawl. He followed the man without a word out to a shiny black car that greatly resembled the one Jack had rode in with Harry to the pub before, but it took only a quick glance to determine that the licence plate didn’t match. Not that Jack had memorised the number or anything.

The trip to the office Jack had visited before with Harry’s publicist seemed to take almost no time at all from Jack’s point of view, though it was entirely possible that was just a side effect of the alcohol he’d imbibed on the flight.

The driver handed Jack a business card as he parked in front of the main entrance to let him out of the car. “Floor number, conference room, and door code,” the man explained upon seeing the confusion on Jack’s face. “You can ring me once you’re through, and I’ll take you back to your flat.”

Jack, who was still feeling a bit overwhelmed, merely nodded before forcing himself to climb out of the car. He made a beeline for the lifts, not wanting to risk looking like he didn’t belong in the bustling office full of people who were dressed much nicer than he was for fear that he might be thrown out on his arse by a security guard or something. It was a worst-case scenario, undeniably, but Jack was still a little too drunk to apply normal logic to the situation.

The short journey in the lift was even more nerve-wracking than the flight and car ride combined. Jack’s hands were trembling by the time he located the conference room he was meant to meet Harry in, and it took him two tries to punch in the code correctly.

He opened the door warily to find a room twice the size of the last one he’d been in. Harry was sat at the head of the table with Pam at his right, an empty chair at his left, and a whole host of faces Jack didn’t recognise filling out most of the remaining seats at the table. Jack stood frozen in the doorway for a moment before Pam finally noticed him and got up to show him to his own seat, which was the unoccupied chair across from her own, angled toward Harry so they were nearly facing each other. Jack glanced around at each of the unfamiliar faces around him in turn before facing Harry again, wondering just what exactly he’d been dragged into.

“We weren’t sure how long it would take you to arrive,” Pam explained as she returned to her seat, “so we’ve gotten started already.” She subsequently identified everyone at the table by name—which Jack instantly forgot—but what didn’t escape him were the reasons that they were all gathered there.

A good chunk of the suited men seated across from him were solicitors from an American management firm, representing a man with short, curly brown hair dressed much more casually than his companions despite the fact that he was apparently vying for Harry’s professional interest. In addition to them, there were also people from Harry’s existing PR team, as well as representatives from a new label looking to make a bid on a solo contract.

Jack wasn’t sure what to make of any of that information and wasn’t convinced he would have fared any better even if he’d been stone-cold sober. He didn’t understand why he was there amongst a whole host of people who clearly had vested interest in the future of Harry’s career. Jack was a nobody in their eyes. None of it made any sense.

It wasn’t until Pam had finished the introductions that she explained the purpose of the meeting. “Things have changed slightly since the last time we met,” she told Jack. “We were hoping that interest in the photos of yourself and Harry at the pub would die down quickly, but so far it’s remained a focal point for a social media frenzy, and people are still frantically trying to figure out your identity from the picture.”

Jack felt a cold chill run up his spine at hearing that, but the sensation wasn’t altogether unpleasant. “I’ve been in the Scottish Borders,” he explained carefully, all-too aware of the many eyes fixed on him as he spoke. “At home. There’s not much chance of being recognised there.” At least not by anyone who didn’t already know him, but if there were any secret Harry Styles fans amongst his friends and family who had put two-and-two together, they’d kept quiet about it thus far.

“Yes,” Pam replied. “And we appreciate that. We just don’t feel that it’s working like we’d hoped.”

Jack blinked at her in confusion and wondered if he was supposed to understand what was happening yet.

Pam continued, oblivious to his bewilderment. Or perhaps just uncaring. “Harry decided to think on your suggestion about his contract, and we’ve been courting a variety of different companies in hopes of finding someone new to partner with.” She nodded at the representatives of both the management firm and the label in turn before facing Jack again. “The only issue is that Harry’s image could suffer from severing ties with his existing management, and we want to nip the potential fallout in the bud, as it were.”

Jack was even more confused now, if that was even possible.

“The prevalent rumour,” Pam explained carefully, “is that the man Harry was photographed with was a bit of drunken experimentation. A one-time fling. After some consideration, we’ve decided that it would be in his best interest to take that story and spin it into something more sympathetic. With your help.”

“My help?” Jack replied incredulously. He still hadn’t even processed everything Pam had just told him, and it didn’t help that Harry was staring at him with distractingly wide eyes, looking like a kitten that had been left out in the rain.

“Harry will look better in the public eye if he switches managers so that he can come out,” Pam said. “And it makes for a better story—one people are expecting, honestly—if the narrative in question involves a hidden relationship. It tests better than Harry trying to pull random blokes at a pub, at least.”

Jack glanced over at Harry again, wondering if pulling random blokes at a pub was anywhere near to the truth of it. It was impossible to tell from his expression, still wide-eyed and pleading though no one had actually asked Jack to do anything just yet.

“So what do you want from me?” Jack asked Pam as he turned to face her once more.

Her mouth pulled into a taut grimace before she answered. “Harry needs someone to be in a relationship with, for promotional reasons. It suits our purposes best to ask you, since you’ve already made a bit of a stir online. We could try to find a lookalike, but for what it’s worth, the fact that you’re already an accomplished actor in your own right would be beneficial to Harry’s image as well.”

Jack couldn’t help but preen a bit at the compliment, as rare as they were from people in Pam’s position. And it was difficult to argue with the proposal in front of everyone else present in the conference room. In front of Harry. Which was something Jack was sure that Pam had planned in order to coerce him into agreeing just to avoid causing a scene.

“What happens if I say yes?” Jack wondered. “What would I even have to do?”

This time, when Pam slid the contract across the table for Jack to take, it was in the form of a thick bound booklet. Jack was sweating already at the size of it. What had he gotten himself into?

“You’ll have seventy-two hours to look everything over and come to a decision.” Pam looked over at one of the PR people at the other end of the table and nodded. “Heidi?”

A petite young woman hurriedly stood up and gestured for Jack to do the same. He did so hesitantly, unable to keep himself from glancing back at Harry as he rounded the table to follow Heidi out the door he’d come in through, but Harry was no longer looking at him.

Jack exited the conference room with the bulky contract tucked under his arm and followed Heidi down the corridor. She led him into a different room altogether, this one tiny, and empty of furniture except for a small desk in the corner.

Jack remained standing as she closed the door behind them. “So,” she said, taking a deep breath as she turned back around. “Pam wanted me to give you a quick rundown before you go home. Just so you understand the terms.”

Jack nodded uncertainly and waited for her to elaborate.

“You’ll be playing second fiddle to Harry at a press event of our choosing,” Heidi explained. “Potentially more than one, if time allows. You wouldn’t have to do much except act as if you’ve been in a long-term relationship for a while and are just now being allowed to reveal it. I assume that part wouldn’t be a problem for you.”

Jack shook his head. But then— “What am I supposed to tell people?” he asked. “My family?”

Heidi gave a tiny shrug in response and folded her arms over her chest. “You can’t tell them the truth,” she replied. “That’s the only real stipulation. Sorry.”

“Okay.” Jack mulled it over. He was going to go home, sleep off the rest of his cocktail, and then have a good, long read in the afternoon once he was sober again. As of now, he had no idea what the right decision even was. This was all so beyond his pay grade. “Is that all?”

Heidi nodded. “Unless you have more questions for me.”

Jack had a million questions, but he needed to get the hell out of this place before he could properly wrap his mind around the concept of pretending to be Harry’s boyfriend in some bizarre publicity stunt. “Okay,” he said again as he reached past Heidi to open the door.

The last thing he expected to find on the other side was Harry, looking vaguely apologetic as his eyes roved between Jack and Heidi, who looked just as surprised to see him stood there. “Can you give us a minute?” Harry asked her in a low voice.

She nodded and skirted around him to get through the door. Harry walked in and slowly closed it after her before turning to Jack with an even more pathetic expression than before.

“Sorry,” Harry said quietly. “Again. About all this.” He seemed to expect Jack to reply, but when he didn’t, Harry swallowed hard and kept speaking. “I didn’t think this would be the solution Pam came up with when I told her I wanted an out from Modest.”

“It’s fine,” Jack replied, the reassurance coming from out of nowhere. “I’m not…blaming you, or anything. But I haven’t made a decision, yet.”

Harry nodded slowly. He looked a bit taken aback by Jack’s response, and Jack wondered just which bit had been so surprising to him. “You’re taking this pretty well,” Harry commented with a short laugh. “Are you even interested in men?”

“No,” Jack said automatically. There was an unpleasant twist in his stomach as he gave the answer that he wished he could quell. He’d never wanted to be that guy, the one who was secretly uncomfortable with the thought of being gay despite outward appearances. He’d be damned if that was the reason he turned all this down.

“Well,” Harry said in a slightly more morose tone. “Take your time,” he advised. “It’s a big decision.”

Jack nodded. “Yeah,” he replied roughly. “I’ll uh…I suppose I’ll let you know, then.”

Harry bit into the meat of his lower lip and gave a nod of his own, adopting an effortlessly wounded expression as he stared up at Jack. “You shouldn’t feel pressured into saying yes,” he said unexpectedly just as Jack was reaching for the door. “I know Pam can be convincing when she wants someone to do something, but you shouldn’t do it if you really don’t want to.”

Jack paused and glanced back at Harry, his hand frozen on the handle. “Do _you_ want me to do it?” he wondered.

There was a long pause before Harry finally answered. “Yes.”


	4. Chapter 4

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Twitter: @vondrostes & @vondrostesupd8s  
Tumblr: @vondrostes
> 
> A friend of mine is running a Harry-centric body hair appreciation fest! You can submit prompts and find out more about it here: pubefest2020.tumblr.com

Jack had run his seventy-two hours down to the wire while sat in his London flat, agonising over the details of the contract he’d been offered by Harry’s publicist.

Making the decision wasn’t easy. There was a load of legal mumbo jumbo that Jack had left his agent to deal with; after being assured there wasn’t anything included that would require Jack to literally sell his soul, he’d gone back to staring at the fine print on his own, as if hoping for an answer to spring from between the thin lines of text covering the page.

The requirements of the job—and it was a job, as bizarre as that seemed—were fairly clear-cut. Jack was to be at Harry’s beck and call for the next two weeks, until Harry’s contract with Modest lapsed and he was finally able to sign the new one. During that time, Jack was meant to be literal arm candy at any and all events which required Harry’s presence. He wasn’t to speak to the press about the relationship, and if asked by someone he knew, he was meant to feed them the same story Pam was planning to give the tabloids when all was finally revealed: that Jack and Harry had been seeing each other in secret for some time and that they were tired of hiding the truth now that they’d finally been spotted together in public.

The difficulty lay in the slow reveal. Pam didn’t want to dive right in, which Jack was grateful for, since he wasn’t confident in his ability to sell a long-term relationship with someone he didn’t know anything about beyond what was on their Wikipedia page (and Jack wasn’t wholly convinced that everything on there was even true).

The goal was for the reveal to seem as natural as possible, as though the media and the public were being allowed to discover the truth for themselves instead of being fed a deliberate lie meant to benefit Harry’s career—and Jack’s as well now, as a direct result.

Pam had been very clear about the rewards Jack was to reap as a result of participating in this scheme. The publicity wouldn’t hurt, sure, but apparently Harry’s team had plenty of connections, and those had been plainly detailed in the portion of the document addressing Jack’s remuneration for his services.

Yes, Jack was to be paid for pretending to be Harry’s boyfriend. Like a glorified escort. Thankfully, Jack was already a screen actor, which meant his dignity was all-but non-existent. They couldn’t have picked a more suitable candidate, he thought to himself with a slight tinge of bitter humour.

Jack sent back his acceptance of the contract’s terms just before midnight on the final day of consideration. There was a chauffeur outside his front door less than eight hours later, this one the man he recognised from the first trip he’d taken with Harry to and from the pub on the eve of their fateful meeting. He looked about as pleased to see Jack as he had back then.

Jack decided not to even bother trying to make pleasant conversation as they made the trip from the rundown building that housed Jack’s tiny flat into the rambling hills of Hampstead Heath, which felt less like London than any part of the city Jack had had the opportunity to admire thus far.

Jack was expecting Harry’s house to be tucked away deep in the trees, as far from civilisation as one could be while still residing in London itself, so he was surprised when they pulled up to a large white house on a somewhat busy street, next to an even bigger building that Jack recognised almost instantly.

“This is it?” Jack questioned as the car idled in front of the gate.

“This is it,” the driver replied a bit mockingly before pressing a remote to open it for Jack. “You can go on through,” he said without making any move to bring the car closer to the house.

Jack climbed out tentatively, his eyes roving past the cars driving by to where a gaggle of girls was meandering on the other side of the tree-lined road, phones in hand. So that’s why, he thought to himself as he passed through the open gate only to have it close behind him barely a millisecond after he’d gone through.

Jack paused in the middle of the drive now that he’d been afforded a bit of privacy. He peered up at the multi-storey building, frowning at the architecture. It felt oddly out of place, like the house as a whole had been transplanted from somewhere else entirely and plopped down right in the middle of a historic part of London as if to highlight just how much it didn’t belong. That annoyed Jack more than he expected. So far Harry had been relatively lovely in terms of both appearance and personality, but now Jack had a feeling that all that had been a superficial façade, and that the more he came to learn about the popstar, the less he’d like what he found.

It was unfortunate that he was having this realisation now, after being locked into a relationship for at least the next two weeks with him.

The front door was, for some strange reason, already ajar when Jack approached. He pushed it open cautiously, taking a tentative step inside and peeking around at the rooms visible from the threshold in hopes that he’d spot Harry right off the bat, saving him the trouble of having to call out for him or search the house instead, but no luck.

Jack sighed heavily and walked through the door, shutting it behind him as quietly as possible even though that sort of defeated the purpose of alerting Harry to his presence.

There was no indication of where Jack should go, so he decided to linger inside the first room, which turned out to be a dining room, judging from the large table sat near the wall, rather than a traditional foyer. Jack admired the floral centrepieces adorning the ornately carved mahogany and sniffed at them cursorily, wondering if Harry had given any personal input on his home décor or if it was all decided for him by someone better suited to the task.

There was a sitting room directly adjacent to the dining room; Jack took a quick peek inside before determining that it, too, was vacant. The large collection of books on the shelves covering one wall didn’t escape his notice, however, and it was only a few seconds before Jack decided it wouldn’t hurt to take a closer look. He was meant to know Harry, after all—intimately.

Harry’s collection was eclectic, to say the least. There was a lot of Shakespeare, which Jack was pleased to see on the shelf looking unexpectedly well-loved, but amongst the smattering of plays—all of the romances and comedies with very few of the tragedies—were a load of self-help books and what appeared to be pulpy romance novels, quite a few of which had gotten the movie poster treatment, featuring vaguely melancholy actors staring into each other’s eyes on the covers.

Altogether, it was an odd culmination of personality, one Jack couldn’t quite wrap his head around.

“See anything you like?” asked a familiar voice from the doorway.

Jack turned around to find Harry stood there in nothing but a sheer black robe, thin enough that Jack could see his nipples through the fabric as well as the line of his briefs, if they could even be called that. “Aye,” he replied automatically before realising how it might sound. “I mean, no, I was just—” He cut himself off and cleared his throat before he could dig himself an even deeper hole.

Harry laughed lightly, and Jack was all-too aware of the way Harry’s eyes remained fixed on him despite the fact that Jack couldn’t force himself to meet them.

“I can change, if you’d feel more comfortable,” Harry offered.

Jack gave a tight nod. “Aye, that’d probably be best.” He felt a bit bad about it once Harry had turned around to leave the room, but it was easier to breathe after he was gone, and Jack certainly couldn’t complain about that.

Jack sat down on one of the available sofas to wait for Harry’s return. He was only gone a few minutes, but in his absence, Jack had already catalogued the rest of the room, from the curtains—plain white, minimalist—to the abstract art adorning the walls, some of which seemed disconcertingly sexual in a way that Jack wasn’t sure was intentional or not.

When Harry finally darted back into the sitting room, he was dressed casually in a pair of ripped jeans and an oversized sweatshirt. His hair hung wildly around his face, like he’d only just gotten up and rolled out of bed. He popped down onto the sofa adjacent to the one Jack was sat on and resumed staring at him almost immediately, allowing the silence to stretch on as though he didn’t find it the least bit discomfiting.

“So,” Jack said uneasily.

Jack didn’t have anything to follow the interjection, but Harry seemed to catch onto what Jack was really asking as he finally perked up and glanced around the room. “Pam should be here soon,” Harry informed Jack as he relaxed into the cushions once again.

Jack had to wonder exactly how soon, because he wasn’t sure how much more he could take of this…pure, unfiltered Harry experience. Whatever it was.

Jack made it another thirty seconds before finally giving in to his nerves. “You live next door to the Spaniards Inn?” Jack blurted out. He’d nearly forgotten about it in the dazzle of the house’s interior, but now that he’d had time to acclimatise, the fact that Harry’s ugly modernist home had been plopped down right next to a half-century old monument of English literature and history shot right to the forefront of Jack’s mind again.

Harry shrugged. “I thought I might see a ghost,” he replied simply, as though that explained anything about his decision at all.

Jack sucked in a quiet breath through his teeth and tried not to look directly at Harry as they continued waiting.

Pam took several more minutes to finally arrive, minutes that felt like hours the longer Jack spent in Harry’s silent company. He was thankful they’d both been drinking when they went out together after the auditions, otherwise, he didn’t think he could have managed.

When Pam waltzed into the sitting room to join them at last, two Styrofoam cups clutched in her hands, Jack didn’t think there was any other situation in which he would have been happier to see her.

Pam, however, shot Jack a dubious look as she handed Harry one of the coffee cups before taking a seat across from them both on one of the armchairs. “Sorry,” she said offhandedly. “I wasn’t sure what you’d like.”

Jack shrugged. “I’m fine,” he replied. He didn’t drink much coffee, anyhow. A fag or two was usually enough to get him through a long afternoon, and he was generally chipper enough in the morning to do without stimulants of any kind. Jack glanced over at Harry again as he took a sip of the beverage Pam had given him. He wondered if he’d be allowed to smoke when they were together, or if that would be a no-go based on Harry’s preferences. Jack supposed if it was forbidden that at least it might be enough motivation to finally quit for good this time.

“I assume you’ve looked over the contract,” Pam said with no prelude. Her own coffee cup sat abandoned on the table between them, untouched as she reached into her bag for her phone.

“Back to front,” Jack replied. It wasn’t an exaggeration. He’d pored over the damn thing, looking for anything at all that might put him in a bind he wouldn’t be able to wriggle his way out of if he accepted the terms.

“Good,” Pam said, nodding. “I suppose we can move right along, then.” She glanced down at her phone, tapped a few times, and then looked back up again with an expectant eyebrow raised, as if she’d thought Jack would have already taken the initiative. “Well?” she remarked. “Stand up.”

Jack did so with a questioning look, even more confused when Harry followed suit. It wasn’t until Harry took a step closer that Pam finally deigned to explain herself.

“Every moment you spend in public is liable to be photographed,” she told them. “It’s important you display an appropriate level of physical chemistry between two people who have been in a long-term committed relationship for some months.” Pam pressed her lips together in pensive contemplation while Jack stood there awkwardly, Harry at his side. “You should hold hands,” she finally decided.

Almost as soon as Jack slotted his hand into Harry’s, Pam clicked her tongue in disapproval. Jack couldn’t help but glance down at the arrangement of their hands clasped together, wondering what he’d done wrong. “What?” he demanded. Harry didn’t say a word.

“It would play better if you laced your fingers together instead,” Pam advised. “It’s more intimate.” She stared at Jack, waiting impatiently for him to do as she’d suggested.

Jack swallowed hard and exchanged a quick glance with Harry before easing his fingers between Harry’s so their hands were linked palm-to-palm. He wasn’t sweating, but Harry was, his hands clammy like Jack’s had always gotten before an audition the first few years he’d spent in theatre.

“Better,” Pam pronounced. “You should stand closer together when you’re in public, too. Try to look like you want to be around each other.” Her eyes narrowed as she looked Jack up and down. “It’s like you’ve never played a romantic lead in your life,” she said disparagingly, without even getting up from her seat. Finally, she lifted the cup of coffee to take a sip.

Jack felt his face heat up with a mixture of embarrassment and anger. “Well, not with a man, I haven’t,” he said in his own defence.

Suddenly, Harry’s hand was torn out of his own, and when Jack turned, he saw nothing but Harry’s back as he slipped through the door. Jack turned to Pam with a quizzical expression.

Pam shrugged in answer. “You’ll have a few days to get it right,” she said, as though it was meant to be a comfort. “If it helps, you should stop thinking about the gender dynamics of the relationship. Just act natural.”

Jack furrowed his brow. “Well, how am I meant to know how to….” He trailed off, unsure of how to put his question into words. He’d taken for granted the fact that with a woman, there were rules, a set of expectations for how Jack was supposed to act around the girl he was dating. With Harry thrown into the mix, Jack was lost. Was he meant to open the car door for Harry, or the other way around? Who was leading who? It was a simple question, but an important one.

At some point, Harry had come back around. He lingered in the doorway, not taking a step further into the room. “You can do whatever you’d do with your girlfriends,” he said in a soft voice. “I won’t be offended or anything, if that’s what you’re worried about.”

Jack felt all the tension bleed out of his muscles as he realised that had been exactly what he was worried about. Harry had all the power in this situation. Jack still felt like he was treading through a sea of broken glass, afraid to make a single misstep for fear of the consequences. He wetted his lips and swallowed hard as he turned to face Harry. “All right,” he replied. “I can do that.”

“Splendid,” Pam remarked dryly. She was staring down at her phone again, tapping furiously at the screen. “I’ll have someone leak your name to the press shortly,” she told Jack. “It’ll tie you to the photos from before, but we’ll want to stage another opportunity for someone to spot the two of you together in public within the next few days to properly capitalise on the reveal.”

Jack quirked an eyebrow at that. “Anywhere specific?” he wondered. “Or am I meant to be photographed walking Harry’s dog?”

“I don’t have a dog,” Harry protested weakly.

Both Pam and Jack ignored him. “I think a dinner date would be more appropriate,” Pam remarked in response to Jack’s query. “Tomorrow night?” she added with a side glance aimed Harry’s direction.

Harry nodded with his arms crossed tightly under his armpits. “That’s fine.”

Jack wasn’t asked for his opinion on the matter, but he supposed that was something he’d need to get used to for at least the next few weeks. And speaking of which— “When exactly are we supposed to end all of this?” he asked. His eyes flitted over to Harry for a second, but there was no answer to be found in his expression. Jack turned back toward Pam.

She didn’t look up at him as she replied. “Harry’s contract is up in two weeks, but there’s a charity event a week after that I think it would be best if Harry had a date for. It would make the right statement, considering.”

Harry didn’t say anything in argument, but he seemed less than pleased as he looked on, still stood in the doorway as though he could hardly wait to properly exit the discussion.

Jack felt a bit annoyed by that. This was all to benefit Harry, after all. He wasn’t the one who would have to lie to his friends and family for who knows how long about not being straight all so Harry could come out on top. Like he was probably used to by now. Jack had to fight the look of disgust he could feel threatening to burst free in his expression, and he turned back to Pam again with his lips pursed in an effort at maintaining his composure.

“So we break up after that?” Jack asked her.

Pam shook her head. “You’ll be free to stop being seen with Harry afterward. We don’t want to make any statements about the relationship, either positive or negative. It’s better to let the fans and the press fill in the blanks on their own. Once you stop being seen in public, someone will connect the dots and decide that you must have broken up and subsequently write an article about your amicable separation from one another.”

Put like that, it sounded simple. But Jack was certain it would be anything but. “Is that all, then?” he wondered.

Pam nodded. “I’ll send over the details for your dinner date later today.”

“Brilliant.” Jack pushed himself up into a standing position with a sigh and considered Harry, still stood in the doorway and fully blocking his exit out to the dining room. There was another door on the other side of the wall leading into what looked like the kitchen, but Jack wasn’t sure how to leave through there, and in any case, going out that way sort of felt like admitting defeat. He trudged forward with his gaze held steady, not giving Harry an inch.

Harry didn’t budge either, leaving both of them at a stalemate as Jack approached.

Jack finally stopped a few steps from where Harry is stood and lifted his eyebrows, wondering just how long he was planning to play this little game.

“You’re sure this is something you’re ready for?” Harry said in a quiet voice. “I know it’s a lot.”

It wasn’t the response Jack was expecting, but he recovered quickly. “It’s just another role.”

“Right.”

Harry’s nostrils flared out as he continued to stare at Jack, but otherwise, his expression didn’t shift by a millimetre. Finally, he stepped out of the way just far enough for Jack to slip past, the gap between Harry’s body and the door narrow enough that Jack couldn’t avoid brushing against him as he went by.

Jack wasn’t expecting the iron clasp of Harry’s hand around his arm, preventing him from taking another step further. He looked up questioningly, not sure what to make of the nearly frantic look in Harry’s eyes.

“You can stay for breakfast,” Harry told him. It sounded more like a plea than a friendly invitation, but something about it scared Jack far too much to accept.

He made a show of looking around at Harry’s house before turning to face him again. “There aren’t any cameras here,” Jack said, intending for it to come across as a light-hearted joke about the situation they’d found themselves in. When Harry’s face fell in response, he regretted it. “Besides,” Jack added hastily, “I wouldn’t want to keep your driver waiting.”

“Yeah,” Harry replied, still looking crestfallen. “Of course. I’ll see you tomorrow.” He let go then, and Jack didn’t think he could be blamed for the way he practically sprinted back out of the house in his hurry to get away from Harry’s dewy-eyed melancholia, unable to stand his wounded stare for even a second longer without feeling unbearably guilty.


	5. Chapter 5

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Twitter: @vondrostes & @vondrostesupd8s  
Tumblr: @vondrostes

Jack was, as a rule, a punctual person. Which is what made it all the more embarrassing when he neglected to check the time the following evening, failing to notice until fifteen minutes beforehand that the date he was scheduled to go on with Harry was nearly upon him.

He hopped in the shower first, because even as late as he was already, he wasn’t about to do a meal with Harry Styles at some posh London restaurant while smelling anything but freshly bathed. By the time he emerged from the bathroom, he had less than seven minutes left to get dressed and presentable. Jack somehow managed it in four and a half, and was stood just inside the entryway to his flat when the buzzer sounded from the garage downstairs.

Jack didn’t bother responding through the intercom like he might’ve if he hadn’t been expecting someone. Instead, he headed straight down to meet the car that was waiting for him downstairs, its headlamps shining brightly in the poorly lit garage. It wasn’t until Jack opened the rear door that he realised the person behind the wheel wasn’t one of Harry’s drivers, but instead Harry himself.

“You can sit up front,” Harry told him with a wry smile. “I won’t bite. Promise.”

Jack raised an eyebrow but didn’t dignify Harry’s comment with a response as he summarily shut the door and climbed into the passenger seat next to him. “Where to?” Jack wondered.

Harry waited until he was properly buckled in before turning the car round to leave. “Murano.”

Jack had never heard of the place before, but it only took a few seconds of Googling—in which Harry had unsuccessfully attempted a twenty-point turn in the middle of the garage—to discover that it was exactly the sort of high-end dining that Jack would have expected from someone like Harry Styles. Or, well, someone as rich as Harry Styles.

It was Italian, at least. Jack could never say no to a decent spag-bol.

What Jack hadn’t been counting on at all was Harry’s absolute inability to drive. He wasn’t sure they were going to make it to the restaurant alive, let alone in one piece, but somehow they managed. Harry didn’t seem to notice the way Jack white-knuckled the dash the whole way there, and Jack didn’t particularly feel like disillusioning him after the way he’d reacted to Jack’s breakfast-time rejection the day before, so he said nothing and allowed Harry to continue living in a fantasy world where his driving skills weren’t akin to attempted murder.

Jack had been half-expecting red carpet chaos by the time they pulled up to the place, but it was almost eerily quiet (for London, at least) as they exited the car. There wasn’t another soul in sight as they made their way up the walk to the front entrance, all done up in minimalist white. The signage above the door was barely visible, which annoyed Jack on principle even though he supposed it was meant to be more visually pleasing. Or something.

The pretension didn’t end at the front door. Inside, it was even worse. Jack felt almost suffocated by the air of pomposity that saturated the entire dining room, making him feel even more out of place at Harry’s side.

The maître’d recognised Harry right off. It was plainly apparent by the blush on her face that she knew exactly who he was before he even stepped forward to give his name, and she nearly tripped over her own feet in her haste to show them to one of the private dining rooms—apparently, Harry was too good to dine with the hoi polloi even when the whole point of their outing was to draw attention to the fact that they were together.

They were seated at a surprisingly intimate table considering the size of the space inside. Jack could only assume that it was a standard part of the experience they provided for parties of two who requested a private room, because he couldn’t see Harry requesting it specifically for his benefit.

Jack sat down apprehensively, afraid that he would disturb the serenity of the atmosphere with an errant squeak of his chair or by accidentally knocking over the silverware, which he was almost certain was the real thing for once.

His silence continued while Harry ordered a bottle of wine, after which the maître’d exited the room to give them time to contemplate their orders. Once she was gone, Jack picked up his menu to evaluate the options—and the prices. What he found inside gave him an instant headache.

“How are you supposed to—this is a joke, right?” Jack lifted his eyes to meet Harry’s over the top of the menu, only to find the boy staring at him with what seemed like genuine concern.

“Well,” Harry explained slowly, “you order by the number of courses. It’s rather simple, actually.”

Jack groaned and dropped his head down onto his arms, suddenly grateful that he didn’t have to put on a pretence of dining etiquette since they were shut away from any and all prying eyes. He no longer gave a flying fuck what Harry thought of him, either. Well. He cared a little less, at least.

“I was hoping for something simple,” Jack confessed as he lifted his head again. “What’s wrong with a nice mushroom ravioli?”

Harry let out a laugh that could have almost been called a cackle. “Just like in Twilight,” he replied.

“Like in what?” Jack said, his eyebrows shooting to his hairline.

“Twilight.” Harry rolled his eyes. “Don’t play dumb, Jack, I know you know what Twilight is.”

“Well, to be fair,” Jack replied, “I never read the books, which is what I assume you’re referencing.”

Harry hummed in disappointment. “Shame. I do love Pattinson, but you would have made a lovely Edward.”

“Yeah, and I might’ve actually been the right age, too.”

“What, a hundred?”

Jack just blinked at Harry in confusion while the other man laughed.

“Jack, you are aware he was a vampire, right?”

Jack went a bit pink. “Oh, shut up.” Thankfully, he was saved from further discussion of young adult literature by the arrival of their waiter, who stiffened up predictably almost as soon as he caught sight of Harry. Jack had to stifle a laugh as the boy wandered over with a nervous smile.

There was a bottle of wine clutched between his fingers; he poured it with trembling hands into both their glasses with well-practised gusto that did nothing to disguise his nervousness. Jack was a bit surprised actually. He’d mistakenly assumed all of Harry’s fans were older women and screaming teenage girls.

Harry raised an eyebrow in question at Jack when it came time to give their orders. Jack merely shrugged and nodded toward Harry, giving permission for him to decide. Thankfully, Harry took the nonverbal cue for what it was and rattled off a series of courses for the both of them to the waiter, who nodded furiously as he jotted it all down before skipping back out the door again.

“Does that sort of thing happen a lot?” Jack wondered once he was gone.

Harry looked over at him with a quizzical smile. “What sort of thing?”

“Running into fans everywhere you go, knowing that kids like him are going to go home and tell all their mates about what you were like?” It was the sort of thing Jack used to dream about, but now he wasn’t so sure if it was all it was cracked up to be.

Harry shrugged. “You get used to it,” he said simply. “It’s not so bad having people like you, you know.”

Jack had to keep a tight lid on the grimace that threatened to spread across his face in response to Harry’s answer. He’d always wanted that, knowing that anywhere he went, there would be people that admired him—loved him, even. For Harry, that seemed to be as effortless as breathing.

Jack took a sip of the wine Harry ordered before glancing back up at him again. “So how are we doing this, then?” he asked before downing another mouthful.

Harry swirled his own glass but didn’t take a sip as he stared at Jack, waiting for him to elaborate.

“Are we meant to just…switch it on every time someone might be taking pictures?” Jack clarified, swallowing hard before washing the words down with more wine.

“You’re assuming you’ll know when someone is taking pictures,” Harry countered.

Jack supposed Harry had a point there. “So your solution…?” he asked leadingly.

“We live the lie,” Harry proposed. “When we’re together, we should act like it.” He smiled reassuringly at the end of his statement, as though it would make Jack feel better about all of this. “It’ll seem more authentic than just trying to play it up for the cameras,” he added.

Harry was a method actor, apparently. It was a thought that almost made Jack laugh, but he managed to reign himself in by finishing the last of his wine. “I don’t really know how,” he confessed as he eyed up the bottle sat between them on the table.

“Like we talked about before,” Harry replied. “Just pretend I’m some girl you’re on a date with. I don’t plan to be fussy about that sort of thing.”

Jack felt his face heat up in pre-emptive embarrassment, and he grabbed for the bottle just to have something to occupy his hands. “I haven’t dated much since uni,” he told Harry. “I had a long-term girlfriend during school and—” Jack cut himself off before he accidentally let slip something he didn’t even want to think about, much less talk about with Harry. He took a quick sip of his re-filled glass to cover up the blunder. “But she wasn’t really the type who liked being wined and dined, you know?”

Harry’s expression was unapologetically curious as he stared at Jack. “What happened to her?” he asked.

Jack took another sip, and then another. He cleared his throat. “She couldn’t handle the schedule after I moved to London full-time,” he replied. “It just wasn’t working out anymore, so we agreed to break things off.”

Harry nodded knowingly. “Making time for people’s hard,” he said. “The constant traveling’s the reason why I don’t really do commitment, either. Among other things.”

The way he said it made it easy to guess at what he really meant, and Jack was surprised that the rumours about him weren’t so off-base after all. Except instead of sleeping with Victoria’s Secret models in every corner of the globe, Harry was apparently going after blokes like Jack instead. Jack’s face went even redder as he finished off his second glass of wine.

Jack had almost managed to finish off the bottle by the time their first course arrived, at which point Harry requested a second bottle be delivered to their table despite the fact that Harry had yet to even finish the first glass the waiter had poured for him.

“Sorry,” Jack told him as he began poking at his food without even being sure what it was yet. “Making you pay for two bottles of wine when you haven’t even touched yours.”

Harry laughed and picked up his glass to take a cheeky drink as if trying to prove something to Jack. “Technically,” he replied, “my PR firm is the one paying for it.”

“Technically,” Jack retorted, eyebrows raised, “isn’t the money flowing into your PR firm coming out of your pocket to start with?”

“Semantics,” Harry said dismissively, but the smile on his face showed that he wasn’t taking any of it too seriously. “It’s not like I can’t afford it.” He stared at Jack for a few seconds, the smile on his face slowly diminishing into a contemplative expression. “Can I tell you another secret?” he asked in a soft voice.

Jack paused with his fork halfway to his mouth. “Will I get in trouble for hearing this one, too?”

Harry laughed. A good sign. He shook his head as he opened his mouth to reply. “The new label tentatively offered me an eighty-million-dollar contract,” he said in a near whisper as he leaned in toward Jack, his elbows braced against the table and hands clasped under his chin. He had yet to take a single bite of his food.

Jack’s jaw dropped open. “What did you do?” he spluttered. “Sell your fucking soul to them?”

Harry cackled. “Not quite. Pretty sure I lost my soul the first time I signed a contract actually, so I don’t think it’s on the table anymore.”

Jack wasn’t sure if he was meant to laugh at that or not, but he managed a sympathetic smile.

“It’s not that unusual in the industry,” Harry explained. “It’s for three solo albums, so I’ll be riding that wave for a while.”

Jack scoffed. “Still,” he replied. “Twenty-five million per album doesn’t seem like something to shake a stick at.” He paused, considering. “How much is that in pounds?”

Harry’s answer was almost instantaneous. “Around sixty.”

Jack’s eyes went wide. “Christ alive.”

Harry laughed again. Finally, his fork descended to spear a bit of the course he’d been served several minutes before. Jack watched almost studiously as Harry brought the bite to his mouth before closing his lips around it, his chewing slow and contemplative. Jack blinked a few times before tearing his eyes away and turning his attention to his own meal instead.

Jack was aware that the numbers Harry was throwing at him weren’t indicative of how much he had in the bank, but it was hard to imagine that Harry Styles was suffering monetarily in any way with figures like that to back him up. And it might not have been uncommon for someone of Harry’s calibre to land an eight-figure contract, but Jack wouldn’t have that sort of money to look forward to even if he did land a major role in Dunkirk or a film just like it.

“What do you even do with that much money?” Jack found himself asking. It was graceless, even for him, but Harry didn’t seem offended by the query.

Harry hummed in contemplation as he wrapped his lips around his fork again and swallowed. “You’d be surprised at how much of it goes toward maintaining a lifestyle that allows me to make that kind of money,” he answered. “It takes a village, and all that. Plus, there’s travel…property expenses…taxes, of course—honestly, I try not to think about it too often.” His eyes crinkled endearingly around the corners as he smiled at Jack again. “It does still floor me, though, whenever I get a cheque for some absurd amount of money and I’m reminded all over again that this is my life now.”

“You’re not used to it?” Jack wondered. “You’ve been at this since you were—what, sixteen?”

Harry nodded. “Sometimes it just doesn’t seem real,” he admitted.

Jack couldn’t imagine being thrust into fame at such a young age, though it was the sort of rise to greatness he’d longed for when he was a teenager. Looking back on it now though, he could see that it would have had awful consequences. He’d been too emotional as a kid. Too obsessed with proving something to himself. To others. He wasn’t sure that he’d changed all that much, but he was better at hiding it, at least.

Out of nowhere, Jack suddenly felt the urge to take Harry’s hand come over him. He was too tipsy to question it and reached across the table without thinking, placing his hand over Harry’s in an unfamiliar gesture of intimacy.

Harry didn’t react beyond a brief widening of his eyes as they touched. He didn’t move his hand away, but he did finally take a sip of his wine, his eyes fixed on Jack’s as he swallowed.

The door to the dining room opened again before Jack could think of a way to bridge the silence that had descended on them. He snatched his hand away from Harry’s on instinct just as the waiter re-entered the room with their second bottle. Jack pretended not to notice the look of hurt on Harry’s face, visible for only a few seconds before the boy stepped between them to take the finished bottle of wine from their table and replace it with the new one.

He took a minute or two to make sure they were both enjoying the meal before stepping away again with the promise of their second course arriving shortly. Jack distinctly remembered that Harry had ordered four courses and wasn’t sure how he was meant to endure the rest of the dining experience after the mess he’d made of the first portion.

Wine, though, Jack thought to himself. Wine tended to solve a lot of things.

Jack downed another glass before the second course was brought out and was well on his way to drunk by the time the third made it to their table. That was when Harry started to look a bit concerned.

“Maybe you should slow down a bit?” Harry suggested carefully. “I think you’re a bit too tall for me to carry you back to the car.”

“Sorry,” Jack replied, nodding, the word muffled by the glass still pressed against his lips. He lifted it again instinctively to take another sip and then slowly lowered it back down to the table. “Sorry,” he re-iterated. “I’m just a bit nervous about all this.”

“You’re doing all right so far,” Harry reassured him. “You should eat more. Sober up a little.”

Jack frowned. He wasn’t sure why Harry seemed so intent on keeping him sober since it wasn’t like either of them were planning on going home with each other after this, but he did as Harry asked anyway, switching from pouring wine down his throat to shovelling food into his mouth instead.

There was no opportunity after they’d gone through all four courses for Jack to even attempt to pay the cheque, which he was slightly grateful for, considering how much all of it must have cost. It was slightly disconcerting though, to be on a date that he was in very little control of after his past experiences with women in traditional relationships. Harry might have given Jack permission for him to treat Harry like his girlfriend, but in this regard, Jack felt like it was the other way around.

Jack was a bit confused when Harry didn’t get up immediately to leave after he’d finished, seeing as Jack had emptied his plate several minutes before and there was no cheque that needed to be collected. Instead, Harry just sat there with a serene expression, patiently waiting for something he didn’t seem to feel the need to clue Jack in on.

It wasn’t until the waiter from before wandered back in that Harry’s plan began to reveal itself. “Come on,” he said, sliding his chair back and gesturing for Jack to follow him out after the waiter.

Jack remained confused as they followed the boy along the back wall of the main dining room before entering through a door marked ‘employees only’. Inside was the kitchen, filled with staff, and Jack’s confusion quickly turned to alarm as Harry started to make the rounds inside the kitchen by shaking each and every person’s hand before hugging two of the chefs in turn. Jack remained frozen in place near the door, not sure how to react or if he was meant to do anything at all.

It wasn’t until Harry had spent at least a few seconds with each member of the kitchen staff that he finally turned around again and began walking back toward Jack and the exit. Jack sagged against the wall in relief that quickly turned to dismay when Harry reached out for him with an expectant expression.

“The head chef,” Harry whispered in Jack’s ear before dragging him over by the hand. “We wanted to extend our compliments,” he added in a much louder voice as they approached the man stood in the centre of the room. “My friend really enjoyed the wine.”

“I can see that,” the chef replied with just the hint of a smile playing at his lips. “I hope it paired well with the food.”

“Yes,” Jack blurted out. “Very well. Thank you.” He supposed that Harry’s vague introduction must have been in the interest of subtlety; loudly announcing to every stranger they met that Jack was Harry’s boyfriend wouldn’t generate much intrigue, after all.

“Could we get a picture?” Harry wondered. “All of us together?”

Jack just barely curbed the look of dismay that threatened to spill out onto his face as Harry looped an arm around his waist, staring up at him with an expectant smile until Jack brought up his own arm to wrap it around Harry’s shoulders in a poor approximation of how they might have taken a photo together if they’d really been a couple.

Jack did his best to make the photo look convincing, but he wasn’t sure if he’d succeeded by the time they were through, after half a dozen of the restaurant’s employees had taken their own photos of the group, presumably to proliferate across social media as part of their grand plan.

Jack thought he’d done a fair job of keeping himself in check during the photos, but Harry’s look of amusement as they walked back down the road seemed to indicate otherwise.

“Didn’t peg you for the shy type,” Harry said in a far too smug tone as they climbed into his car.

“A little warning would have been nice,” Jack managed. His tongue felt too heavy in his mouth, but the words all came out correctly, somehow.

“What would have been the fun in that?”

Jack shook his head but didn’t answer as he stared out the window at the now-darkened London streets, passing by in a blur as Harry drove well out of his way to drop Jack back off at his flat.

“So that’s that, then?” Jack found himself saying when they pulled into the parking garage. He wasn’t even sure what he meant by it.

If Harry found the comment odd, he didn’t say so. His expression was tinged with concern as he stared at Jack, reminding him of his mother, almost. “You should get to bed,” Harry advised him. “Sleep off the wine.”

Jack nodded. Harry was probably right about that one. He was clearly drunker than he’d thought.

Jack opened the door and moved to climb out of the car, pausing at just the last second before turning to face Harry again.

“What is it?” Harry asked just as Jack leaned in to press his lips to Harry’s cheek. “Oh.”

“You said to treat you the way I’d treat a girl I took on a date,” Jack reminded him. “Even when there aren’t any cameras about.”

Harry didn’t move a muscle as he continued to stare back at Jack with wide eyes.

“Thanks for dinner,” Jack added as he finally climbed out of the passenger seat. If Harry replied, he didn’t hear it, and then the car was gone, just like that, leaving Jack stood alone in the middle of the garage with nothing but his wine-addled thoughts to keep him company.


	6. Chapter 6

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Twitter: @vondrostes & @vondrostesupd8s  
Tumblr: @vondrostes

Jack woke up the next morning with the particular fuzziness of a wine headache pressing against the edges of his skull. It took him a minute after sitting upright in bed to clear the fog from his vision, and even longer to remember just why he’d been drunk in the first place. He really needed to cut down on the alcohol, especially now that his every move was being scrutinised—either by the public or Harry himself. And Jack wasn’t sure which prospect was more intimidating, honestly.

Jack reached for his phone on the nightstand before even sitting up. He wasn’t sure why there was a hot pang of disappointment curling low in his belly when he unlocked it only to find that there was nothing of importance waiting for him. No missed calls, no text messages, no emails. Not from anyone who mattered, anyway.

It was difficult to keep Harry’s name out of his head as Jack took mental stock of who exactly was on that list, and he ended up tossing his phone to the side with a sigh as he allowed his eyes to drift closed again.

Now that he’d woken up though, it was impossible to fall back asleep. Jack gave it a few minutes before finally conceding defeat and climbing out of bed to start his day.

The problem with life as an actor is that when you weren’t actively working on a project, there was nothing there to fill the time. No routine to serve as an adequate distraction from the creeping anxiety simmering just under the surface of Jack’s skin.

Jack wasn’t even sure why he was so worried about last night. They’d taken a few photos, and he probably hadn’t looked his best, but he’d certainly looked worse in the past, and plenty of _those_ photos were plastered all over Facebook for anyone to find. The only difference was that any bad picture he’d been involved in as a teenager or in uni hadn’t been an instrumental part of a scheme in which Jack was pretending to date a high-profile musician—and for what? Was it really worth it to go through all of this just for the chance of boosting his career?

Jack did his best not to dwell on things he no longer had any control over as he made himself a bit of breakfast, showered, dressed, and climbed back into bed again to binge-watch Netflix in lieu of having anything better to do with his time.

The real test was keeping his hands off his phone. Jack had always been terrible at avoiding social media. He had a bad habit of searching his own name, reading through anything people were saying about him, and usually lamenting the lack of any discussion whatsoever. He had a feeling that wouldn’t be the case for much longer, and his fingers itched to pick up the device and open Twitter to see what people had to say about his outing with Harry. He knew he shouldn’t, though.

Jack managed to hold out until noon, at which point he finally left his flat to grab a sandwich from the shop he liked down the street, only to run into a newsstand with tabloids featuring Harry’s face in all its glory. It was enough for Jack to stop dead right there on the pavement while people passed him by, oblivious to the existential crisis he’d suddenly been thrust into.

Soon that would be his face on those magazine covers, Jack realised. Very soon.

Jack was in a hurry as he grabbed his sandwich and managed to forget his change on his way out of the shop. He had more important things to worry about now.

Jack’s phone was already in his hand before he’d even closed the front door to his flat behind him again after returning with his sandwich clutched in the other, a delicate juggling act that strained his ability to actually lock the fucking thing once he was inside. Somehow he managed to get the job done all whilst in the middle of opening Instagram and logging himself in—he wasn’t sure when the last time he’d used the app was, but it must have been before he’d gotten his new phone, back when he was still with his ex. Well, the ex before his ex. She’d always been the catalyst for him posting more than anything else.

Jack’s account was private, so he wasn’t too worried about accidentally liking anything as he scrolled through the photos that came up in search after typing Harry’s name. He sat down heavily on his sofa as he browsed through a seemingly endless cache of paparazzi and fan pictures, noting the evolution of Harry’s hairstyles throughout the years as he looked for something a bit more familiar. His sandwich lay at his side, still in its paper wrapping, forgotten for now.

Surely the photos had been posted already, Jack thought to himself, his brow furrowed a bit in worry, even though he should have been grateful that his awkward smile hadn’t been plastered all over social media just yet.

But then—Jack scrolled a bit further and there it was: the kitchen scene Harry had dragged Jack into for a photo op.

Jack clicked on the post and thumbed down to the comments, incurably curious now about what people had to say about it.

No one seemed to have figured out who Jack was yet, which was equal parts expected and yet simultaneously disappointing. Jack wasn’t _that_ obscure. He had to wonder just how long it would be before someone finally did figure it out, though.

There were already quite a few fans who had pieced together the fact that Jack was the same mysterious man who had been photographed with Harry in the pub, and even more that were already speculating the two were dating.

But some seemed rather opposed to the proposition. Jack couldn’t help but read through the arguments with a bit of abstract enjoyment, finding it strangely thrilling to be the subject of debate between complete strangers. Strangers who didn’t even know who he was yet, but still had decided he was worthy enough of their attention to dedicate spending the better part of a morning fighting with someone over him.

Jack lost track of time reading comments before moving onto the next reposted photo once he’d found it, and so on. Before he’d realised it, he’d wasted more than an hour in his sitting room, and he certainly didn’t feel any better about his agreement with Harry for having done it.

Jack forced himself to close Instagram and then stared at his phone, contemplating. He needed a distraction. More than that, he needed someone who could talk some sense into him. He’d signed an NDA, so it was a risk telling anyone at all what he’d gotten himself into, but Jack knew he’d go mental if he didn’t have someone to talk to who could be objective about the whole thing.

Aneurin could always be counted on to keep a secret.

Jack wasn’t sure what Aneurin had been up to lately. He wasn’t really the daily chatting type, but Jack knew (because Aneurin had been the one to recommend the gig) that he’d gone for a Dunkirk audition two weeks before Christmas along with Barry, and that neither of them had heard anything as far as getting to the next round. Which didn’t exactly inspire hope for Jack getting a quick response either, but that was lower on his list of worries at the moment.

Jack held the phone to his ear and tapped impatiently against the armrest, going over what he might say in his head before scrapping every scenario in its entirety and starting over again. It was a shame there wasn’t a rulebook for this sort of thing. Jack was floundering already.

“Please don’t tell me you already got a call-back.” It was the first thing out of Aneurin’s mouth after he picked up.

It took Jack by surprise. He scrambled to come up with an appropriate response, caught off guard by the assumption after stewing in his own abysmally low expectations for days. “No,” he finally managed. “I was wondering if you wanted to go out, actually. If you’re still in London.” There was every chance, with Aneurin, that he was halfway across the world and had just neglected to mention it, but Jack was hoping that wasn’t the case this time.

“Yeah, I’m around,” Aneurin answered easily, without prying into the reason as to why Jack wanted to meet. “Lunch, then?”

Jack glanced over at his sandwich, still sat sadly on the sofa, untouched. It would keep in the fridge, he decided. He could eat it a bit later. “Yeah, all right. Pick the place; I’ll meet you there.”

Half an hour later, Jack was sat across from Aneurin at a cosy little Indian place not too far from his flat—a twenty-minute walk, if that. Jack had never even known it was there in all the time he’d spent in his flat, having somehow never going farther than a block down the road in any direction from his building.

He was regretting that a bit now, because the whole interior of the restaurant smelled wonderful, and Jack, who had foregone his intended lunch from earlier, was starving. As a result, it took him a while to get going on his explanation for why he wanted to see Aneurin in the first place. The food was all rather distracting.

There was a tinge of concern in Aneurin’s expression, however, that didn’t disappear even as they ate and made small talk. Finally, he came right out with it. “Did something bad happen?” he asked tentatively.

Jack nearly dropped his drink. “What?”

“You seem nervous,” Aneurin pointed out. “You aren’t like, wanted for murder or something, are you?”

“No,” Jack replied with a forced laugh. “I mean, sort of? But, no. It’s not—hang on.”

“Did the audition go that poorly?” Aneurin pressed with an almost motherly expression.

Jack gave him a sharp look. “No,” he replied, already digging in his coat pockets for his phone. “Just give me a minute, all right?”

Aneurin refused to stop talking as Jack finally pulled out his phone and opened Instagram again, scrolling frantically to find the picture from before. “You know, you probably have the best chance out of the three of us of getting a part. And it doesn’t seem like anyone from the first round has heard back yet, so even if you don’t—”

Jack shoved his phone into Aneurin’s face to shut him up. Aneurin plucked the device from his hand and squinted down at the screen in confusion. It took him a moment to process just what he was looking at.

“Is that Harry Styles?” Aneurin finally asked.

“Yes.”

Aneurin’s eyebrows shot upwards as he glanced up to look at Jack again. “Since when do you know Harry Styles?”

“Since the auditions,” Jack replied.

“Okay.” Aneurin’s eyes flicked back down to the phone for a few seconds before lifting to meet Jack’s once more. “But I mean, that’s good, right? Being mates with someone who has twenty million Twitter followers?”

Jack hoped Aneurin was just guesstimating and didn’t really know off the top of his head just how many Twitter followers Harry really had. “We’re not mates, exactly,” Jack explained. He glanced around them, making sure that the booths surrounding theirs were all still empty. They’d missed the lunch rush, thankfully, leaving them one of the few parties currently occupying the rather large dining room. Aside from going back to one of their flats, Jack couldn’t have hoped for a more private spot. “That’s actually why I called you, to be honest. I, ah…I might’ve agreed to do something I shouldn’t have, Ni.”

Now Aneurin looked really concerned. He had more sense than Jack, too, it seemed, because before Jack could lay out the situation for him, he flagged their waiter over to ask for the cheque and takeout containers for their leftovers. “It can wait till we get to your flat, right?” Aneurin questioned.

Jack nodded and kept his mouth shut until they finished up and got to Aneurin’s car, which was parked along the street not too far from the restaurant itself.

“So,” Jack started, unsure of where to go afterward. “I’m very much breaking an NDA by telling you this, but—”

“Should you be telling me?” Aneurin asked as he glanced away from the road for a second to look at Jack instead.

“I have to tell someone,” Jack confessed.

“All right,” Aneurin replied, nodding. “What did you do?”

By the time Aneurin was pulling into the garage under Jack’s flat, he’d more or less laid out the whole situation with Harry. Aneurin parked, unbuckled his seatbelt, and then turned to stare at Jack like he’d grown another head.

“You aren’t even into blokes,” Aneurin pointed out.

Jack shrugged. “I know, but it’s not like what I’m into really matters much.” Aneurin’s expression didn’t change. “Look, I only agreed to it because I thought it would help me get more work. Later.”

“And now?”

Jack hissed a long sigh through his teeth. “And now, I don’t really know, I suppose. I guess I could always tell people after it’s all done with that I was just experimenting or something. Decided it wasn’t for me.” He stared at the dash for a few seconds before glancing up at Aneurin with worried eyes. “You don’t think people will think that’s shitty of me to say, do you?”

Aneurin seemed nonplussed. “I’m not sure?” he answered. “I mean, you’re probably right about the work thing, but if you’re worried about what people are going to think of you once this is all said and done—”

Jack thrust the door open and stepped out of the car before Aneurin could finish the sentence. The sexuality aspect hadn’t really been at the forefront of his mind when he was looking at comments on Instagram, but now that Aneurin had brought it up again, it was suddenly all he could think about. Did he really want millions of strangers thinking he was gay…bi…whatever? His family and friends thinking the same? His father?

“Thanks for the ride,” Jack said before Aneurin could throw any more helpful advice at him. It was what he thought he wanted, but now that he’d had a taste of it, Jack wasn’t so sure this whole meeting hadn’t been a mistake after all. “I promise not to bother you too much with complaints about my fake boyfriend.”

Aneurin smiled fondly from the driver’s seat. His seatbelt was still unbuckled; Jack supposed he must have been expecting to join him inside, but now Jack didn’t think he could stand the company.

“Anytime,” Aneurin told him. “If he snores too much, you know I’m always here to console you.”

Jack plastered a smile onto his face in response, but in his head, he was now mulling over the prospect of actually sleeping in Harry’s vicinity. It wasn’t a possibility, he told himself. Just a bad joke. But his brain had latched onto the notion now, and it wouldn’t let go, no matter how hard Jack tried. “I’ll see you around,” he forced out as he shut the car door. He lingered just long enough to wave Aneurin off before turning to go back up to his flat, phone in hand.

There was a missed call from Harry.

As much as it pained Jack to admit it, there was an odd sensation in the centre of his chest when he glanced down to see Harry’s name on the screen. His heart missing a beat. Jack squashed the feeling down and took a few deep, calming breaths as he climbed into the lift. He deliberated on his next course of action as he ascended to his floor, but he was no closer to an answer when he finally reached his flat.

At a loss for how to proceed, Jack screenshotted the missed call and sent the picture to Aneurin with a ‘help’ for good measure. He waited five minutes before sending another text, this one asking more specifically how long Jack should wait before calling Harry back.

It was half an hour before Jack got a response in the form of an eye-roll emoji. That was it.

_Not helpful_, Jack sent back with a frowny face.

Aneurin’s reply was quicker this time. _If it’s just a job, then treat it like any other job._

Jack had to concede that Aneurin had a point there. This was a role, a role he’d already auditioned for and obtained, and Harry was both the director and co-star. If Jack just kept thinking about in those terms, he’d be all right.

Jack paced the sitting room as his thumb hovered over the call button. Finally, he pressed it, and quickly lifted the phone to his ear, his breath caught in his throat as he waited out the ringing.

“Hello?” Harry sounded…off, somehow, even though Jack hardly knew him and definitely wasn’t qualified to make that sort of observation. But still, there was something strange in his voice, something Jack couldn’t quite identify.

“Er, you called me?” Jack reminded him. This was already a disaster. “You didn’t leave a message, but I thought I’d call back, just in case.”

“Right, yeah, thanks,” Harry replied, his voice breaking into something resembling relief. “I was actually just going to call you back a bit later since I thought it’d be better than just leaving a message. And if I left a message, or just like, texted you, there’s no way to know if you got them, or read them, which is basically why I called you in the first place instead of just doing that even though it’d be easier—"

“Did something happen?” Jack asked, cutting Harry’s rambling off before it could spiral out of control. Harry didn’t talk quickly, but once he got going, there was no end in sight as far as Jack could tell. Better to nip it in the bud and get to the point right away before Jack’s imagination could conjure up any outlandish scenarios that involved being sued over breach of contract or the like. “Is there another meeting I have to go to or something?”

“Oh, no, nothing like that.” Harry coughed out a bit of an uncomfortable laugh. “I wasn’t expecting to spring this on you quite so soon—or, well, ever, ideally—but I need you to pack a bag tonight.”

Jack had to double-check with himself to make sure he’d heard Harry correctly. He needed Jack to pack a bag? What for? “Why?” he asked.

Harry’s sigh on the other end of the line was clear and audible. “Because it’s time for you to meet the parents.”


	7. Chapter 7

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Twitter: @vondrostes & @vondrostesupd8s  
Tumblr: @vondrostes

Jack had practically doused himself in cold medicine the night prior to make sure he got at least six hours of sleep before Harry Fucking Styles showed up outside his flat in a shiny black Range Rover at four in the morning to spirit him away to Holmes Chapel. To meet Harry’s parents. And his older sister. Jack wasn’t sure which prospect frightened him more.

Jack was still too hazy to make any solid judgments about what to expect when they arrived, and equally lucky was the residual calming effect of his intentional dosing; it was hard to care about Harry’s appalling driving skills when he was fighting valiantly to keep his eyes open.

Jack would have preferred to sleep through the entire trip, but that didn’t feel very fair to Harry, who looked just as tired as Jack felt, his hair pulled up in a ratty bun that exposed a rash of spots along his sideburns. Jack hadn’t noticed those before. He wondered if Harry usually wore makeup or something to cover them up.

In addition to Harry’s general dishevelled-ness, Jack could clearly see that the dark circles under his eyes had deepened immensely since the last time Jack had seen him. Maybe Jack wasn’t the only one who’d had trouble sleeping.

“Would it be rude for us to sleep for a bit once we get to your gaff?” Jack inquired.

Harry shook his head. “I’ll be surprised if anyone else is even awake when we get there,” he confessed.

Jack hummed and stared out the darkened car window out at a black landscape, with only a stray bit of light here and there to indicate they were still within the bounds of civilisation.

They were taking the longer route up the M1 through Leicester instead of Birmingham. Trying to avoid roadwork, Harry had told him. Jack suspected that was only part of Harry’s motivation, due to the fact that they had left criminally early, before there was any real traffic on the motorway at all. Jack was fine with that if it meant they reached Holmes Chapel in one piece.

Jack still couldn’t believe they were even doing this.

“So what exactly did they say to you on the phone?” he asked curiously, turning his head to take in Harry’s profile, illuminated in blue by the dim lights on the dash.

Harry sighed. “Gemma just wanted to know who you were—I think she thought you were cute or something—”

Jack was glad there was no way Harry could see him flushing in the dark.

“Anyway, I just told her that you’re my boyfriend since she’s going to find out when Pam tips off the tabs, and then she demanded that I bring you home to meet her immediately. I couldn’t think of a good excuse to say no.”

Harry sounded vaguely apologetic, but Jack had to question his sincerity. Surely it wasn’t that difficult to think of something work-related that would prevent Harry from leaving London with his normally hectic schedule.

“And your mum and dad?”

“Stepdad,” Harry corrected. “I haven’t talked to them yet, but Gemma’ll have told them by now.”

None of that sounded promising at all, and Jack suddenly wished he’d overcome his sense of moral decency and just googled Harry’s family after all so he had at least some idea of what to expect.

One sister, Jack thought to himself with his forehead pressed against the glass, eyes closed. Mum. Step-dad. Not the worst audience for a first meeting with the in-laws, so to speak. His ex from school had five older brothers. That had been a nightmare. Jack could handle a sister—stepsister? He wasn’t sure, but it probably didn’t matter. If she’d thought Jack was cute to start with, even better. That just left Harry’s parents to charm, and in the end, if he failed, it wasn’t like their disdain would have any long-lasting repercussions for the relationship.

Jack had expected to fall asleep within minutes of getting into Harry’s car despite his virtuous intentions of staying awake, but as soon as he was buckled in and as comfortable as a person could be while trapped inside a moving vehicle, it was as if sleep couldn’t be further away. He hoped that wouldn’t hold true in a few hours, when Jack finally had a bed or a sofa to kip on for a bit. Hell, he’d take the floor if he had to.

Harry was quiet the whole way through, with only the radio playing at half-volume to keep the stifling silence at bay while they drove.

Jack alternated between daydreaming with his eyes closed in some vain attempt at resting and staring out the window as the sprawling urbanisation of London transformed into grassy knolls and endless trees, reminding him just a little more of home than before.

“Jack. We’re here.”

Jack jerked awake, uncertain as to when exactly he’d managed to fall asleep but feeling guilty about it all the same once he caught sight of Harry’s bloodshot eyes again. He opened his mouth to apologise, but nothing came out.

“You all right?” Harry asked, his brow creased in concern. That only made Jack feel worse. “You can go back to sleep once we’re settled in.”

Jack nodded dully. “I’m fine,” he reassured Harry, “just a bit out of it still. Sorry.”

Harry didn’t respond as he turned to climb out of the car, which shook and shuddered under Jack when Harry closed the driver-side door before opening the one behind it to grab his things from the backseat. Neither of them had packed for a long trip, so they’d opted to keep their luggage close at hand rather than putting it in the boot.

Jack groaned into his hands and squeezed his eye shut tight, as though trying to wring out the last dregs of sleep from his brain before he was forced to go inside and meet Harry’s family. Then he climbed out to do just that.

The house they were parked out front of was a fairly large but unassuming home, certainly not the type of residence that would indicate the family of a multi-millionaire lived within. Jack was still on edge as he made his way up the front walk behind Harry, his two small bags clutched tightly in either hand. The pace Harry set as he marched up to the door was sluggish, which only gave Jack even more time to worry about what would come next.

After making it to the stoop, Harry knocked twice and turned towards Jack to wait for an answer.

Jack wasn’t sure what to say or how to act, even, so he just stood there stiff as a board, his eyes wide as he stared back at Harry.

The woman who opened the door was the spitting image of Harry with a couple more decades of life decorating her features. She smiled warmly at Jack even as she stepped through the open door to wrap her dressing gown-laden arms around her child.

“You’re awfully early,” she said to Harry once she’d let go of him.

“Wanted to beat traffic,” he replied simply.

Harry held open the door for Jack to go through ahead of him, which he did tentatively, still half-expecting this whole encounter to turn sour on him at any moment.

“I’m Anne,” Harry’s mother said after they’d gone inside. Her voice was a bit quieter now that they weren’t out on the porch. “You must be Jack.”

“It’s nice to meet you,” Jack replied. He stood there awkwardly, his hands still occupied by his bags and preventing him from going for either a handshake or a hug. Not that he would have known which was more appropriate for the situation. It took Anne another second to notice his predicament.

“Oh, right,” she said, gesturing for the two of them to follow her down an adjacent hallway. “Robin and Gemma are still asleep, and you know Gemma—” She shook her head fondly as she glanced back over her shoulder at Harry. “You’ll be lucky if you see her before noon, so feel free to sleep however long you need.”

Harry shrugged as she led them to a door near the end. “Just wake us up when breakfast is ready,” he told her.

It felt weird to be part of a singular unit, an ‘us’, with Harry now, but Jack supposed that was the whole point of this charade. Not even their immediate families were meant to know the truth of it. Jack felt his stomach turn at the thought that he’d already been the first one to break the vow of secrecy in that regard, but with any luck, Harry would never have to know.

Anne seemed sceptical of Harry’s suggestion. “How about an early lunch instead?” she asked. “You both look like you could use the rest.”

Harry turned slightly to look over at Jack, as if seeking his approval of this new plan. Jack nodded.

“You know where the extra bedding is if you need it,” Anne continued before addressing Jack again as she opened the door to the room at the end of the hall. “The toilet’s just through there, dear,” she said, pointing into the darkened bedroom at a door on the right side of the room, furthest from where the bed took up most of the available space against the opposite wall. “Don’t hesitate to ask if you need anything.”

“Thanks, Mum,” Harry said, leaning past Jack to give her a peck on the cheek. “I think we’ll be all right.”

Anne left without fanfare after that, leaving Jack and Harry stood alone in the middle of the room as Jack came to the abrupt realisation that it was meant for both of them—and there was only one bed.

There was _only one bed_.

“You don’t mind if I sleep on the side closer to the wall, do you?” Harry asked, still as casual as could be as he peeled off his shirt, revealing more tattoos than Jack would have expected.

Jack shook his head. He was still trying to process the fact that he was somehow meant to sleep in the same bed as Harry only a few days after agreeing to this whole charade. They barely even knew each other. Jack still wasn’t even sure if he liked Harry yet. He wasn’t sure he’d even met the real Harry yet. It was hard to say one way or the other.

“Don’t really care which side I sleep on, if I’m honest,” Jack reassured Harry, only to get a quizzical look in response, as if what he’d said made no sense at all. Jack thought it was perfectly logical to sleep wherever the most comfortable spot on the bed happened to be in that particular room, but apparently Harry didn’t share his perspective on the matter.

“I usually sleep naked,” Harry announced almost ceremoniously as he bent down to remove his trousers, leaving him in nothing but socks and a pair of very tight black briefs. There was more ink revealed again, this time on his thigh and ankles, and Jack stared at the tattoos for what felt like just slightly too long.

It was Jack’s turn this time to look at Harry as though he’d grown a second head. “Even in the winter?” he asked incredulously.

Harry shrugged and reached down to peel off his socks as well. “It’s warm enough under the covers,” he remarked casually. “Especially with two people sharing. Or three.”

Jack just stared at him, wondering if Harry really was planning to sleep starkers whether Jack was comfortable with that or not. And Jack was most certainly not comfortable with it.

But Harry just crossed the room in his pants and opened one of the dresser drawers, pulling out a heap of fabric that became vaguely shirt-shaped once Harry had pulled it over his head. “Do you snore?” he asked out of nowhere as he skipped back over to the bed, his giant t-shirt swishing around his thighs as he went.

Jack shook his head. “I don’t think so,” he amended, just in case he did in fact snore and it was just that no one had ever thought to inform him of that fact. “Do you?”

“Yep,” Harry replied chipperly. He set his phone down on the dock next to the bed, pressed a few buttons, and then the sound of soft rock started to play from the speakers at a low volume. Harry then bounced into the bed and immediately burrowed beneath the covers until just his eyes were poking out. He stared at Jack for a few seconds, unblinking. “You haven’t even gotten undressed,” he pointed out, his voice slightly muffled by the duvet he’d pulled up over his mouth.

Jack jolted into action, embarrassed at having his awkwardness called out. He turned slightly away from Harry to strip down to his boxers and a t-shirt, but he was convinced that he could feel Harry’s eyes trained on his back the whole time, even though they were closed when Jack turned back round again, Harry’s expression the perfect picture of sleepy serenity.

Jack climbed stiffly into bed alongside Harry, his back still turned, and closed his eyes, though he wasn’t sure he’d be able to fall asleep knowing that Harry was lying there just a few centimetres away from him.

“Good night,” Harry said.

Jack opened his eyes again, staring out into the darkness. “It’s nearly eight in the morning,” he pointed out after a long pause.

Harry laughed a little, shaking the mattress underneath them in the process. “Good morning, then,” he said instead.

“Good morning,” Jack mumbled back.

It felt like less than ten minutes before Harry’s quiet breaths morphed into soft, rumbling snores that eventually—after Jack turned over in bed to stare at Harry’s face in the dim light coming through the curtains, wondering to himself if this was all just a massive mistake—lulled Jack into an uneasy sleep.

Jack awoke to the sound of someone knocking at the bedroom door. There was golden sunlight coming in through the window now, a sure sign that he’d slept at least an hour or two. Harry was still out cold, so Jack gave him a slight nudge with his elbow and watched as Harry snuffled noisily before sitting up with a yawn.

The knock sounded again. “Are you decent?” Anne asked from the hallway. Jack couldn’t help the hot flush that spread down his neck at the potential implications.

Harry groaned loudly and stretched. “Yeah,” he called out to her. “You can come in.”

Jack quickly sat up as well and rubbed at his eyes as Anne opened the door and walked into the room. He hadn’t noticed it until they’d both emerged from the duvet, but Harry’s t-shirt was visibly drenched with sweat, and upon further examination, Jack found that his own back was a bit damp from the proximity.

“You boys hungry?” Anne asked with a bright smile. “I’m making some cheese toasties if you’d like some.”

Harry nodded sleepily. “Two please.”

Anne glanced over at Jack, her eyes wide and expectant. She really was the spitting image of Harry. Or, well, the other way around.

“I’ll have two as well,” Jack offered up uneasily.

Anne nodded, apparently satisfied with his answer, and drew closer to the bed to wrap her arms around Harry, which necessitated her leaning past Jack to do so. “Make sure you shower before you come out to eat,” she scolded. Her eyes drifted to Jack as she pulled away. “You can use the shower in the master bedroom if you’d like to wash up as well,” she added.

Harry snorted in response. “You’ll let us sleep in the same bed, but showering together is where you draw the line?”

It was the sort of thing Jack would have never even thought to say to his parents, and his eyes widened automatically in surprise. But Anne seemed to take the comment in stride, just shaking her head fondly as she walked back out the door again, pulling it closed behind her to give them some privacy once more.

“You can use the other shower if you’d like,” Harry told Jack once she was gone. “I was just having her on a bit.”

Jack shook his head. “I think I’m all right.” He’d survive the miniscule amount of sweat Harry had left on him without subjecting himself to showering in Harry’s mum’s bathroom.

Harry shrugged. “Suit yourself, then,” he replied as he quickly stripped off his sweat-soaked t-shirt, which he carelessly flung into the furthest corner of the room before crawling out of the bed on all-fours.

If Jack watched him all the way into the bathroom, that was nobody’s business but his own. He waited until the sound of the shower emanated through the door before climbing out of bed himself and wandering over to his luggage to change.

Jack pulled off his shirt first and held it at arm’s length, examining the darker patch on the back for a moment before lifting it to his nose for a cursory sniff. A bit musky, but not a bad smell necessarily, he decided. He’d throw on a bit of cologne after his deodorant to mask any lingering odour from Harry sweating on him during their nap.

Harry was still in the shower by the time Jack finished getting dressed, and the thought of going out to spend time with Harry’s family on his own made him instinctively recoil, so Jack meandered around Harry’s bedroom instead, investigating the space now that he had a few moments to himself.

At first glance it could have passed for a spare room, but there were tell-tale signs that such wasn’t the case. Or hadn’t always been, at least. It wasn’t a time capsule by any means, but there was evidence of Harry’s childhood habitation scattered throughout the space—tape marks on the walls where he must have hung up posters in his younger years, a couple of stuffed animals hidden away in the back of a closet, and worn journals sandwiched between fantasy books with cracked spines crammed into the tiny bookshelf in the corner. Jack was careful not to touch those, despite the inevitable tug of curiosity in his gut trying to convince him it would be okay to take just a quick peek.

Finally, Harry emerged from the bathroom shrouded in a cloud of steam, his hair pulled up into a towel turban on top of his head that matched the fluffy lavender bathrobe that barely came down to mid-thigh.

Jack raised an eyebrow at the ensemble, but Harry ignored him in favour of walking over to the dresser to pull out some clean clothes. “Too afraid to go out and face my parents without me?” Harry remarked casually as he rifled through whatever belongings he apparently kept ready in his childhood bedroom. Jack wondered if he kept multiples of the same garments in each residence or if every wardrobe in whatever corner of the world Harry happened to be residing in was completely unique.

Harry’s assumption was also correct, but Jack didn’t want to give him the satisfaction of having that fact confirmed. “Maybe I just didn’t want to give your mum an opportunity to embarrass you by breaking out the baby photos,” he countered.

Harry turned just enough to roll his eyes at Jack. “If you wanted to see baby photos,” he replied, “all you’d have to do is Google them.” He reached down to untie his robe then, and Jack hastily turned around to wait for him to get dressed.

A few minutes later, they exited Harry’s bedroom and made their back down the hall to the kitchen, where Anne was stood in front of the cooker, a platter piled high with cheese toasties sat next to her on the countertop. She smiled at the two of them as they walked in and nodded toward the fridge.

“Harry, darling, would you go put the fruit out on the table?” she asked, flipping the sandwich in the pan over as she turned around again.

Harry nodded and opened the fridge to grab a container filled with sliced fruit in various plastic trays out of the fridge. Jack reached out in offering to take it from him when it wobbled precariously in his arms. Harry didn’t seem bothered by the gesture, but he didn’t appear particularly grateful either as he passed off the tray to Jack before reaching into the fridge again to grab a few cans of diet soda from the back of the top shelf.

“Diet Coke all right?” Harry asked.

“Aye, that’s brilliant, thanks,” Jack told him. The caffeine would help take the edge off the creeping need for nicotine that he could feel building up underneath his skin. He was confident he could last the rest of the trip without going for a fag, but that didn’t mean it would be pleasant.

Jack followed Harry out of the kitchen and into the dining room, where an older man was sat next to a young woman with bleach blonde hair who looked to be about Jack’s age. Both of them glanced up as Harry and Jack entered the room, their eyes alighting on Harry first before flitting over to examine Jack with curiosity.

“Robin,” Harry said by way of introduction as he set down a few cans on the table before taking the diced fruit from Jack, “my stepdad, and my sister, Gemma. This is Jack.” It didn’t escape Jack’s notice that Harry hadn’t described their relationship during his introduction.

Jack had expected Harry’s sister to be practically his twin after seeing the resemblance between Harry and his mum, but Gemma hardly looked related to either of them, her shrewd face and freckled features as alien to Jack as any stranger on the street. He felt unsettled by her gaze as he sat down next to Harry and across from her, like somehow, she could see right through him to the truth of their charade.

“Nice to meet you both,” Jack said with a tight smile.

Gemma’s eyes widened. “Cute _and_ Scottish? You didn’t tell me that.”

Anne walked in just as Gemma finished remarking on Jack’s accent to Harry. “Gemma, don’t be rude,” she said with a frown as she sat down between her children on Robin’s right. “All right, help yourselves,” she said, sliding the platter of sandwiches over toward Harry and Jack first so they could dish up.

Jack had hoped to keep a low profile for the most part while at Harry’s family home, but Gemma was relentless in her questioning. She wanted to know everything, which only served as a reminder to Jack that he and Harry hadn’t worked out any of the details of their supposed relationship. Jack couldn’t help but glance at Harry for help with nearly every question, floundering hopelessly under the pressure.

“So how did the two of you meet?” Gemma asked after Harry finished explaining that they had been dating casually until recently, which was why he hadn’t felt the need to announce the fact that he was in a relationship to anyone. She lowered her toastie back down onto her plate, her eyes narrowed in something that felt too close to suspicion for comfort.

“Work, actually,” Harry answered hastily. “Industry connections, so on.” He took one look at Gemma’s unimpressed expression and smirked. “I know,” he continued in a petulant tone, “it’s so tragically boring, isn’t it?”

“Well,” Gemma replied, “you think for how long you’ve been hiding the bloke you’d at least have a better story about meeting him.”

Harry rolled his eyes. “I wasn’t hiding him; I was just—”

Perhaps sensing that the formerly friendly discussion between her two children was about to devolve into a row over lunch, Anne loudly set her glass down on the table, drawing everyone’s attention back to her again. “Why don’t we finish up so Harry and Jack can spend some time in town before it gets dark? You wanted to show him around Holmes Chapel a bit, right, dear?”

Harry’s lips were pursed in a thin line as he nodded. “Mhmm.”

The reaction struck Jack as odd, but there was no way to ask him about it, especially not with his family sat right there.

They ate quickly after that, with Harry and Jack fielding a few more queries from Gemma about their living situation in London—Jack’s lease wasn’t up for another six months, so they hadn’t talked about moving in together yet—whether Jack was a cat or dog person—he liked both but had only ever had dogs (the whole family seemed charmed by the pictures of Dasha he had on his phone, at least)—and if Jack had been in any films they might have seen—they determined not, though Gemma and their parents all pledged to watch the upcoming War and Peace adaptation when it came out later in the year.

Finally, Jack and Harry managed to extricate themselves from the dinner table, and Harry reassured them all that they would be back in time for dinner later. He hugged both his mum and stepdad on the way out of the room; Robin clung to Harry tightly before he left and kissed him soundly on the cheek. Jack was surprised by the sudden flash of envy that boiled up in his belly at the sight. His da had never been the affectionate type.

They returned to Harry’s room briefly to don their coats before leaving the house. Jack put on a single jacket on over his jumper. Harry pulled on not only a hoodie, but also a bulky sheepskin coat before tugging a beanie onto his head as well. Jack stared at him in disbelief. Harry ignored the look.

“Ready to go?” Harry asked once he was bundled up warmly enough to survive a blizzard.

Jack nodded and followed him into the hallway. “Why exactly are we doing this?” he asked in quiet tone as they made their way through the house and out the front door with a cursory wave given to Anne and the others as they passed through the front rooms again.

Harry glanced back at Jack with a look of feigned offence. “You don’t want to see all my childhood haunts?”

“I’m not opposed to the idea,” Jack said patiently. “I’m just wondering what the reason for it is.”

Harry sighed and shoved his hands into his pockets. He turned left down the pavement, and Jack quickened his pace to match Harry’s, standing on the street-side, like he’d been taught to do with girls when he walked them home, though in this case Jack wasn’t quite sure the etiquette applied.

“Pam wants us to have a chance to be spotted while we’re here,” Harry finally admitted.

“Damn,” Jack said in a deadpan voice. “And here I thought I was being offered a genuine peek behind the curtain.”

Harry laughed. “Don’t worry,” he told Jack, “I do plan on taking you for a real trip down memory lane. You’re a captive audience, which works out nicely for me. Did you know I used to be a baker?”


	8. Chapter 8

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Twitter: @vondrostes & @vondrostesupd8s  
Tumblr: @vondrostes

Harry hadn’t been kidding about showing Jack around town. They started with the bakery where Harry used to work, at which point Harry explained that he hadn’t ever actually been a baker at all, just the cashier.

Jack had rolled his eyes upon learning that little titbit, but was quickly distracted from making any sort of mocking response by the gaggle of old women—all of whom seemed to remember Harry from his time there—who rushed out to fawn over the two of them as they stepped inside. Well, their reactions to Harry constituted fawning; toward Jack, it was probably closer to flirting, but he gave every bit as good as he got. Some part of him just wanted to see how Harry would react.

Harry, to his credit, just watched the whole ordeal with an expression of exasperated fondness that was slow to disappear, even after they’d been given far too many complimentary pastries and finally departed in search of their next destination.

“This is the bridge where I got stood up by my first girlfriend,” Harry announced in a chipper tone as they approached the landmark in question.

Jack lifted an eyebrow. “You chose that for one of your Holmes Chapel tour highlights?” he asked sceptically.

Harry shrugged. “It happened, didn’t it?”

Jack supposed he couldn’t argue with that logic.

There ended up being not that much to see in Holmes Chapel, which wasn’t surprising considering the tiny footprint of the village itself against the dreary English landscape. By the time the clouds started to roll in at mid-afternoon, Harry had peeled back the curtain on his childhood with the exception of one last point of interest.

“The viaduct,” Harry said as he gestured widely across an open field toward a somewhat rundown-looking brick structure in the distance.

“It’s, uh…big,” Jack remarked as he squinted at it, his hands shoved inside his coat pockets to keep warm now that the wind had picked up.

Harry laughed and stepped out onto the grass. “I’d take you over for a closer look, but sometimes fans hang out around there.”

“Around an old viaduct?”

Harry nodded. “There’s a wall where I wrote my name, so fans come and leave messages under it.”

“Do you ever read them?” Jack wondered.

“Sometimes,” Harry said without looking back at him, his eyes still fixed on the supports of the viaduct a few hundred metres ahead. “Sometimes I’ll go out for a walk at night; stop by and have a look, you know.”

There was a heaviness to his words, like there was something behind them that Harry wasn’t saying, but Jack didn’t want to pry. But he didn’t want to go back to Harry’s house either, at least not right away, so he stepped forward and reached for Harry’s hand.

Harry stared at it for a second before glancing up to give Jack a questioning look.

“I don’t see any fans,” Jack pointed out.

Harry quirked his head to the side with a smile that seemed to imply he knew more than Jack did but was willing to humour him anyway. “Okay,” he said easily as he slotted his hand into Jack’s.

They only made it halfway across the field before a gaggle of schoolgirls—no, older, twenties, maybe—came traipsing along from the opposite direction, headed straight for the viaduct as they chattered at top volume and laughed even louder, the sound of it carrying across the open space as if they were stood right in front of Harry and Jack.

Jack looked over at Harry to find the same serene smile plastered across his face, but he didn’t say a word, not even a quick, ‘I told you so’.

“Should we turn around?” Jack asked.

“If you want,” Harry replied cryptically. “Or….”

Jack frowned. “Or?”

Harry gave a tiny shrug in response. “We could give them a bit of a show.”

Jack glanced over at the girls again, who had now definitely taken note of their presence but didn’t seem to recognise Harry just yet. He considered the possibilities. It was hard to say what would happen if Jack went along with Harry’s plan—he wasn’t even sure yet what that plan was—but a part of him desperately wanted to find out. Finally, he turned and nodded. “Okay,” he agreed.

Jack felt a bit off-balance when Harry placed a gentle hand on the curve of his jaw and pulled him down for a kiss, but he didn’t put up a single ounce of resistance, letting Harry take the reins and guide him into a slow, steady meeting of their lips.

It was a little different than kissing his previous girlfriends; Harry was a lot taller, for one, and there was the slight rasp of stubble when he moved his head just so. But for the most part, Jack couldn’t tell the difference as soon as Harry opened his mouth, the heat, the softness still the same as it ever was, and that made it easy as anything to lose himself to the kiss.

When they finally pulled apart again, Harry’s cheeks were wet, and it took Jack a minute to realise that they were raindrops, not tears.

“Suppose we should head back before we drown,” Harry said nonchalantly, as though he hadn’t just had Jack’s tongue down his throat for most of the last thirty seconds.

Jack nodded. He couldn’t help but turn to glance back at the girls out by the viaduct. They were still staring intently, whispering to each other with what looked to be phones in their hands. Jack’s stomach dropped. He’d forgotten in the heat of the moment that every decision he made with Harry was one he would have to live with forever now.

They had to make a run for it when they turned onto the road where Harry’s family lived, at which point it finally started to pour and not even their winter coats could save them from the deluge. They were both soaked through when they came in through the front door, and even Anne made a face when they dripped water on the floor all the way along the hall and into the kitchen.

Jack watched as she fussed over Harry for a moment, pushing cups of tea into both their hands before disappearing to grab towels to dry off with.

“You may as well change your clothes, too,” she advised after returning with a giant fluffy bath towel for each of them.

Jack accepted his gratefully, trading it for his dregs and following Harry out of the kitchen so they could return to his room. Once again, as soon as the door was shut behind them, Harry started to undress without warning, leaving Jack to pivot a full one-eighty with a beet-red countenance to show for it.

It probably shouldn’t have been as strange as it was to have Harry be naked in front of him—he was just another bloke after all—but there was something distinctly different about Harry, something that made Jack feel like he wasn’t allowed to look. He wasn’t sure if it was the fame, or the whole gay thing, or something else entirely. But it was clearly affecting him.

“I’m going to take a shower,” Jack decided. He bent down to grab fresh clothes from his bag and didn’t wait for Harry’s response before disappearing into the bathroom to do just that. When he emerged no more than twenty minutes later, Harry was gone.

It didn’t take Jack long to find him again, though. Anne’s house wasn’t overly large, and Harry had made no attempt to hide. He was sat on the sofa in the sitting room with Anne and Gemma to either side of him, a cat in his lap swiping desperately at a piece of yarn dangling from Harry’s fingers.

Jack cautiously sat down on the armchair to the left of the sofa and watched Harry play with the cat for a bit while the lot of them listened to the news going on the telly, and then Anne turned to look at him, an inquisitive expression painted on her disconcertingly familiar face.

“Do you have any siblings?” she asked. Apparently, Gemma’s inquisition at the lunch table hadn’t produced quite enough information about Jack.

He nodded. “One,” he replied. “A younger brother.”

“Oh?” Gemma piped up from the other side of the sofa. “How much younger?”

“Two years,” Jack replied. “So about the same as you and Harry.”

Gemma made a face. “I suppose I have to feel sorry for you, then,” she joked.

Harry frowned and threw and elbow her direction, nearly dislodging the cat perched on his legs. “Hey,” he said in a wounded tone.

Anne ignored her children’s antics in favour of pursuing the subject of Jack’s family further. “Is your brother into acting as well?’ she inquired. “Or does he have a normal job? I know a lot of people in the industry grew up in it because of their parents, right?”

Jack nodded. “My parents aren’t involved,” he confessed. “My da—well, he wasn’t impressed when I decided to go to theatre school, but—” He stopped himself, not wanting to traverse down that path with his fake boyfriend’s mum who he’d only just met. “My brother’s not an actor either, but he…erm, he’s a ballet dancer, actually?”

Jack hated telling people that. He always knew it made Calum sound like the black sheep, the rebellious one, but truthfully, their father had never turned up his nose at Calum’s dancing the way he had when Jack had suddenly pivoted to theatre out of the blue. Maybe it was just the fact that Jack was the eldest, or that he’d been the one to disappoint their da first and had thereby worn him down…but whatever the reason, Calum had escaped any and all judgment of his unusual career path. From their parents, at least.

“Oh, well, that’s interesting,” Anne replied mildly. “You two must be quite popular at family gatherings, then.”

As they conversed, Jack could see Harry out of the corner of his eye, still playing with the cat but clearly listening intently to everything Jack was saying—even though he was attempting to feign disinterest all the while.

Eventually Robin re-joined them after coming back with groceries for dinner, at which point Harry finally stood up from the sofa and moved to pass by Jack on the way. He stopped just in front of the armchair, his eyes expectant. His invitation was wordless, but Jack got up to follow him anyway.

“Thought you might want a break from all that,” Harry said by way of excuse when they got into the kitchen.

Jack stood off to the side and watched as Harry prepared various dishes and ingredients for their evening meal. “Anything I can help with?” he asked instead of responding to Harry’s statement directly.

Harry nodded and passed him some veg to chop while he got the pasta water started. They worked in silence with the exception of Harry asking Jack to put his veggies into the saucepan once it was ready. It all felt oddly…normal. Domestic. Comfortable, even. And here Jack was with one of the most famous people in the world, cooking dinner together like it was any other night at the weekend.

Jack was spared another interrogation over dinner, the spotlight instead going to Harry, who hadn’t yet had much of a chance to fill his family in on his goings on as of late. Jack observed quietly and tried to ignore the way the idyllic family scene made him miss his own family, even though it hadn’t been that long at all since he’d been home.

It felt like much longer, though, thanks to this whole charade. Every day spent with Harry sort of felt like its own eternity. Jack couldn’t properly explain why, but it was just as if time itself seemed to slow down around Harry specifically for some reason.

Jack’s phone vibrated in his pocket during pudding and he glanced down at it despite knowing it was rude, unable to help himself. Seeing Pam’s name on his screen was like having ice water poured down his back, those three letters cutting through the homely atmosphere and reminding him that this was just a job, not his life. None of it was real.

And when Jack finally got a chance to look at the message Pam had sent him, it was even worse than Jack had expected.

Jack excused himself to the back garden to call her back, aware the whole time of Harry’s eyes following him out of the dining room and through the back doors. His fingers were a bit shaky as he lifted his phone to his ear, his heart racing already though he didn’t know why Pam had asked him to call her yet.

“Is Harry with you?” she asked as soon as the call connected on her end.

“No,” Jack replied. “Should he be?”

“He wasn’t answering his phone,” Pam replied in a short tone. “I assume he’s still at home?”

“Yeah. We both are. Did something happen?”

“Yes and no,” Pam answered. Her cryptic answers weren’t doing much to ease the frantic pounding of Jack’s heart, but he was powering through for the moment. “Someone uploaded photos of you and Harry kissing. Or that’s what it looks like, at least. They aren’t very good quality, but it’ll have people talking.”

“Okay,” Jack replied when it became clear that Pam was expecting some sort of response.

She stayed silent a moment longer before continuing. “I just wanted to make sure you weren’t surprised by it.”

“It was Harry’s idea,” Jack said slowly, “but I knew people were watching us when I agreed to it. He didn’t trick me, if that’s what you’re worried about.”

“I’m not worried,” Pam assured him. “I just want to be prepared for every eventuality. I want to make sure you’re handling things.”

“I’m fine,” Jack insisted. “If I stay out here any longer, Harry’s going to come looking for me, though, so if that’s all?”

“That’s all. Tell Harry to call when he gets a chance.”

Jack had zero plans of doing anything of the sort, but he told her he would and then summarily hung up before heading back inside.

Harry made no attempt to hide his curious expression as Jack re-joined him at the dining table. “What was that about?” he asked in a quiet voice, the others distracted by a joke Anne had made from what Jack could gather in the few seconds since he’d come back inside.

“Just a work thing,” Jack replied vaguely. He figured Harry would understand what it meant.

Gemma was the one to suggest watching a film after they finished eating, and before Jack could come up with a good excuse to go to bed early instead, she turned to him and demanded that the guest have the honour of picking out what they were going to watch.

“Well, I won’t subject you to anything I’ve been in,” Jack replied good-naturedly before choosing something practically at random: a film Aneurin had raved about when it was released but that Jack had never gotten around to actually watching.

They all crammed into the sitting room for it; Robin and Anne on the sofa together, Gemma in the armchair, and Harry—already retrieving a pair of pillows and a large blanket from a wicker basket in the corner. He laid them out on the floor in the centre of the room and looked up expectantly at Jack, who had no choice but to join him in the makeshift nest in front of the telly.

It was dark with just the film playing, but not dark enough, Jack thought, to hide the fact that he and Harry were lying stiff as boards on the floor with no less than ten centimetres of empty space between them. And that would have been fine if they hadn’t been on display in the middle of the sitting room for all of Harry’s family to see if they let their eyes stray from the film for even a second.

Jack slowly inched closer to Harry, trying to figure out a way to cuddle him without feeling like he was doing something wrong in the process. Eventually, Harry seemed to catch on and moved a bit closer to line up their bodies side by side, his head resting gently against Jack’s chest as the film stretched on far longer than Jack expected.

Harry and Gemma were relegated to doing the washing up after the film finally finished, at which point Robin excused himself to go to bed, patting Jack on the back in a fatherly manner as he passed. Anne hadn’t moved from her spot on the sofa, and Jack felt weird about fleeing to Harry’s bedroom alone, so he sat cross-legged in the middle of the blanket nest and waited for Harry to come back so they could say their goodnights.

“I wanted to thank you,” Anne said out of nowhere.

Jack glanced over at her, startled. “For what?” he replied automatically, biting his tongue afterward at how rude it sounded once it was out.

Anne didn’t seem to care, though. She stared at Jack with a soft smile, looking so much like Harry that it was difficult for Jack to maintain eye contact with her. “You make him very happy,” she told Jack in a tender voice.

It was too much for Jack to handle, the fact that they were lying to Harry’s mum of all people, the fact that she was so clearly over the moon about a situation that wasn’t even real. He felt unbearably guilty, but he knew he’d only feel worse if he outed himself now and left Harry to pick up the pieces, so he kept his mouth shut, nodding back at Anne with a forced smile. “He deserves to be happy,” Jack found himself saying. He wasn’t sure where the words had even come from.

Thankfully, Harry wasn’t too much longer in the kitchen, saving Jack from any more uncomfortable discussions with Anne. “Ready to head to bed?” he asked as he helped Jack put away the blankets and pillows.

Jack just nodded and followed him out of the room once they were finished.

It wasn’t all that late, but Jack was grateful enough for the excuse to not have to play his part for the moment. He didn’t question it when Harry got undressed and climbed into bed, only to pluck a book from the nightstand and start reading instead of lying down to sleep.

Jack watched Harry in silence for a moment, the dim light from Harry’s lamp casting a soft pink glow onto his face. “What is it?” Jack asked. “The book.”

Harry seemed a bit surprised by the query but answered quickly. “It’s called ‘Slouching Toward Bethlehem’,” he told Jack. “It’s about the author’s experiences in San Francisco in the sixties.” He turned the page, quiet again, but barely a minute passed before he was opening his mouth to speak once more. “I can read some to you,” he offered a bit shyly, “if you want.”

Jack nodded and allowed his eyes to drift closed. “That would be nice,” he said.

It was impossible to say how far Harry had gotten before Jack had drifted off, but when he woke, it was pitch black and Jack had no idea where he was, just that he was hard and there was a soft, warm body pasted against his front. A soft, warm body that Jack instinctively rubbed himself off against for nearly a minute before realising that it belonged to Harry Styles.

Jack froze, not wanting to wake Harry by jumping out of bed like every cell in his entire body wanted to do. Well, the ones that weren’t screaming at him to keep going, because of course he’d been seconds away from coming in his pants when his brain had finally caught up to what his body was doing and sent out a warning signal. Now Jack didn’t know what to do.

Finally, he gritted his teeth and carefully peeled back the covers to ease out of bed and into the bathroom. It was a good thing Harry had wanted the side closest to the wall, because Jack would have had a hell of a time getting out without waking Harry up if their positions had been reversed.

Jack stumbled drowsily into the bathroom, still only half-awake and running mostly on the adrenaline of having been almost caught dry humping an international celebrity in his sleep. But he wasn’t tired enough to go back to bed without taking care of the problem first.

Jack’s cock was still in his hand when the door opened behind him a few seconds later. He didn’t have time to even react as he glanced up to find Harry’s wild mane of curls in the mirror, but Harry didn’t so much as look at him as he went past.

“Have to pee,” Harry said sleepily as he lifted the toilet lid and sat down without ceremony. He rubbed at his eyes with a sigh. “You can finish wanking when I’m done,” Harry added through a yawn.

Jack didn’t think he’d ever been more mortified in his life, but even that wasn’t enough to quell the erection that persisted even after Harry had done his business and gone back to bed, leaving Jack stood there in the darkened bathroom with no idea how the two of them were meant to get past this if Harry had been awake the entire time that Jack was humping him in his sleep.

That thought didn’t stop Jack from wanking off once Harry was gone, though. And it didn’t stop him from thinking about the way Harry’s body had felt pressed to his when he finally spilled into his own hand.


	9. Chapter 9

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Twitter: @vondrostes & @vondrostesupd8s  
Tumblr: @vondrostes

Jack woke up on the sofa in the sitting room with Anne’s concerned face hovering worriedly a few centimetres from his own. “Are you all right?” she asked as he blinked himself awake. They looked nothing alike, but Jack couldn’t help but be reminded of his own mother whenever he and Anne spoke, and that, combined with how eerily similar she looked to Harry, was an unsettling experience.

Jack nodded and scooted back into a sitting position as he rubbed at his eyes, failing to stifle a yawn. “Harry’s snoring was too loud,” he lied. “Couldn’t sleep.”

Somehow, he ended up in the kitchen alongside Anne as she made breakfast, offering help whenever it seemed like she could use an extra hand. The others gradually trickled in as the morning wore on, but Harry was the last to sit down at the breakfast bar, and when he came in, it was obvious that he was avoiding any opportunity to meet Jack’s eyes from across the room.

“It was awfully quiet on our side of the house last night,” Gemma remarked as she tore off the corner of her toast with her teeth before chewing it obnoxiously—on purpose, Jack thought, judging from the smirk she was sporting as she stared across the counter at Harry.

It took Jack another minute to register the joke, even as Anne and Robin’s faces creased into disapproving frowns while Harry’s cheeks turned bright, flaming red. Jack glanced between him and Gemma, wondering if Harry had made it a habit in the past to fuck people in his childhood bedroom while his sister was just on the other side of the wall.

When the silence lengthened and Harry still didn’t react, Gemma seemed to sense she’d touched a nerve. Her face fell. “Never mind,” she mumbled as she dug into her breakfast again, as though trying to physically hide behind her beans and toast.

Anne was quick to swoop in and try to salvage the conversation. “Will you be heading back to London soon?” she asked, her eyes flitting between Harry and Jack like she wasn’t sure which she’d have better luck getting an answer out of.

Harry was the first to respond. “Yeah, probably in an hour or so.”

Jack didn’t realise they’d be leaving so early, but he wasn’t about to protest. He’d just about had enough of this whole trip.

“And you’re sure I can’t convince you to stay a little bit longer?” Anne pleaded. “It’s so rare we even get you in the same country, love….”

“I know.” And Harry really did look gutted to have to deny his mother this one thing. “But we do have to go back. We’ve both got obligations in London soon. Trust me,” he continued in a wry tone, “I’d love nothing more than to just stay here in Holmes Chapel for a month just so I could have homecooked meals every day.”

Jack was sure that Harry could easily afford to have someone follow him around the globe and cook all his meals for him, but then again, he supposed that wasn’t really the same thing as eating something your mum had made for you.

Anne smiled sadly as she nodded along. “All right, dear. I just wish you’d take some time off.” She waited a moment, as though expecting Harry to respond, but he said nothing. “Well,” she added with a quiet sigh, “let me pack you some of the biscuits I made, at least.”

They returned to Harry’s bedroom once they were finished eating to pack up what little they’d brought with them. Jack watched from the doorway as Harry bent down to rearrange the contents of his toiletries bag, wondering if he should say something about what happened between them last night. When Harry straightened up again, Jack quickly turned, avoiding his gaze entirely. So much for that.

They didn’t exchange a single word between the time that they said goodbye to Harry’s family in Holmes Chapel and the moment hours later when Harry pulled up in front of Jack’s London flat to drop him off. Jack felt queasy as he climbed out of the car, his nerves frayed by the tense silence they’d let simmer in the car, but when he turned to give a quick farewell, nothing came out.

Jack closed the car door and watched from the exterior of the lift as Harry drove away, wishing fruitlessly that he’d done something different. Now, all Jack could hope for was that he hadn’t undone everything he’d been trying to achieve by agreeing to pretend to date Harry in the first place.

Jack got into the lift and pressed the button for his floor with every expectation of drinking himself into a hazy afternoon nap once he got up to his flat, but once he opened the front door, any pre-existing plans flew straight out the window.

His brother was stood in the middle of his kitchen.

“Calum,” Jack said cautiously, turning slightly to lock the door behind himself.

“Jack,” Calum replied deadpan.

“Care to explain why you’ve broken into my flat?”

“You gave me a key,” Calum reminded him, dangling the aforementioned item from his index finger.

No, he hadn’t, Jack thought bitterly. The key had been for Saoirse; but what was Saoirse’s was Calum’s now, he supposed.

“Still,” Jack countered. “You could’ve called ahead. I could’ve been out of the country for all you know.”

Calum pursed his lips a little in irritation. “Yeah. Wasn’t expecting you to be out all night, to be honest. You’re such a homebody these days.”

Jack bit the inside of his cheek to keep from saying something he’d regret and stepped forward away from the door to dump his duffel next to the kitchen counter. He ignored Calum entirely as he opened the fridge and pulled out a beer, all the while aware of his brother’s unwavering scrutiny.

“So where were you?” Calum continued, undeterred by the tense atmosphere filling the room. “Clearly wasn’t a pull if you’ve been lugging that shite around.”

“Don’t see how it’s any of your business,” Jack replied, downing his beer in one go before reaching for another.

“It’s my business because Jodie saw a picture of you on Instagram. And Twitter. And TMZ. And Maw sent me down to find out what the hell’s happening because clearly you didn’t think it was important enough to give any of us a head’s up before you ended up on the front page of every magazine in the country.”

Jack didn’t have a response for that. He should’ve expected it really, but his parents were older and relatively sheltered from the Internet in general. He hadn’t counted on someone else bringing the headlines about him to their attention.

“So you’re just not going to say anything?” Calum challenged.

“Well, what do you want me to say?”

“An explanation would be nice.”

Jack set his beer down on the counter. “Harry Styles asked me out for bevs. I said yes. Harry Styles asked me out to dinner. I said yes. End of story.”

Calum glanced down pointedly at Jack’s duffel on the floor. “And that? The pictures of you…kissing?”

Jack’s heart sank. He hadn’t banked on having to deal with his family’s reaction to that. He’d never thought for a second that it would really make it back to them. This had all seemed like a bizarre dream rather than a real part of his life now, but Calum’s presence was rapidly changing Jack’s perspective on the matter.

“Why do you even care?” Jack shot back, more bitterly than he’d intended. He stormed past Calum to empty the rest of his beer down the sink drain; the taste was sour in his mouth all of a sudden, and he wanted nothing more than to go to bed and sleep until this was all over with.

When Jack turned around again, Calum was still stood there, but his face had softened. “It’s not like any of us would have been ashamed of you, Jack,” he said quietly.

Jack turned away, feeling even guiltier now that he’d managed to trick his own brother into thinking that shame was the reason he’d been hiding Harry from his family. He didn’t want to have this discussion anymore. “You can stay on the sofa while you’re in town if you want,” he said. It was intended as a peace offering of sorts.

Calum shook his head. “Nah, I’m all right, actually. Saoirse’s got a hotel room booked while she’s here for a thing. That’s why I was in the neighbourhood.”

“Right. Because you wouldn’t have come all this way just to check on me.” Jack didn’t bother to look up at the pitying expression he knew he would find on Calum’s face. “Is Saoirse working?” he deflected instead. “It would have been nice to see her again.”

Jack was just being polite, but Calum’s face lit up like he’d just had the best idea in the world. “We should go on a double date,” he suggested brightly. “She’s off in a few hours; do you know if Harry’s free?”

Jack had to squash the grimace threatening to break free on his face. “I’ll ask him,” he replied curtly. He pulled out his phone and sent off a quick text, providing as few details as possible in hopes that Harry would turn the invitation down. There wasn’t much hope that he’d accept anyway after the tension they’d left Anne’s house with, so Jack wasn’t too worried. “Is that all you wanted?” Jack asked as he looked up at Calum again.

Calum opened his mouth to reply, but before he could get a single word out, Jack’s phone chirped loudly, informing him of an incoming text message.

Jack glanced down at his phone with a frown. It was from Harry. Already?

_Sure,_ it read. _Time and place?_

Now Jack was in a right mess. “He said yes,” Jack told Calum. “Wants to know when and where.”

Calum shrugged. “You know London better than Saoirse and me,” he pointed out. “I’ll leave you to sort it out.” He walked past Jack, heading for the door. He clapped Jack on the shoulder as he went by. “Text me the details, then, yeah?”

“Right,” Jack grumbled. He didn’t watch Calum leave, but he jolted a bit at the sound of the door slamming shut behind him.

Once his brother was gone, it didn’t take Jack long to find a place to eat that he thought would pass both Harry and Saoirse’s muster as well as not drain his wallet in the process. Because there was no way Jack was letting Harry pay the cheque for them in front of both his younger brother and his girlfriend. Calum’s girlfriend, that is—not Jack’s. Not anymore, anyway.

Jack flopped onto his sofa with a sigh and made reservations for seven, texting both Calum and Harry the details once everything was confirmed.

Harry was the first to reply back just a few minutes later, confirming that he would be by around six to pick Jack up. Calum’s response followed shortly thereafter, with nothing more than a thumbs up emoji in response. Jack rolled his eyes.

But now that there was nothing left to occupy his attention—until six, at least—Jack felt himself starting to panic a bit. And as was becoming a bit of a habit, Jack immediately picked up his phone again and dialled Aneurin.

“This isn’t about those photos, is it?” Aneurin answered with a put-upon sigh.

“No,” Jack replied as he got up and walked into his bedroom to find something to wear to dinner. “I mean, not really. Calum’s in town, actually.”

“With Saoirse?”

“With Saoirse.” Jack stared at the inside of his closet with a frown, suddenly wishing he’d invested a little more time and money filling out his wardrobe when he’d moved to London. But then again, this flat had never been intended to become quite so permanent. “Calum suggested going out on a double date and Harry said yes, so now I’m absolutely fucked.”

“I mean…it could be a good thing,” Aneurin pointed out.

“In what way?” Jack shoved aside his meagre collection of winter coats and desperately combed through the array of button up shirts he had at his disposal. There were a couple that were nicer than the others; Jack pulled out a wine-coloured one and laid it down at the foot of his bed.

“Well, this thing with Harry might be a good way to prove to Saoirse that you’re finally over her,” Aneurin pointed out.

Jack paused with his hands still gripping a pair of slacks that he wasn’t even sure would still fit him. “What if I’m not quite over her?” he asked in a quiet voice.

Aneurin sighed. “Jack.”

“It’s not like I can control it,” Jack replied defensively. He’d already made up his mind not to mention what had happened at Harry’s house, and now he was twice as glad for that. He wasn’t sure he could handle Aneurin’s disapproval in yet another area of his love life when things were already complicated enough.

“Just…I don’t know. Fake it until you make it, right? Pretend you’re having a good time with Harry and try to forget about Saoirse.”

“Forgetting about her is going to be pretty bloody difficult when she’s sat right in front of me.”

Aneurin didn’t have much in the way of advice after that, but he reminded Jack, “You’re an actor, remember?” before making an excuse to hang up.

Jack sat down on the edge of the bed next to the clothes he’d laid out, wondering if he should try and have a wank before he showered just to take the edge off. A big part of him didn’t think it would help much, especially since even just contemplating it was an unpleasant reminder of what had happened between him and Harry, so he decided against it and then hopped into the shower after a quick shave.

His thing with Saoirse was complicated. They’d met on a shoot that ended up being canned before production was even due to be finished and had hit it off immediately. Jack had been newly single; Saoirse had never had a proper relationship before—it was doomed to fail from the beginning, but that didn’t stop either one of them. They were sleeping together within two weeks, broken up before they hit six months, and then somehow, against all odds, Saoirse had ended up with his baby brother less than a year later.

Jack was an adult, so he hadn’t begrudged her or Calum their decision. But he’d been torn up about it, a lot more than he’d let on to either of them, and he knew that Saoirse had been an unwitting spectre haunting every first date with girls who deserved far better than what Jack could give them. And now Harry—who wasn’t even really his partner but would still have to deal with Jack’s gnarled past regardless. Jack wondered if he should warn Harry beforehand just what he was getting into.

Jack finished getting ready well in advance of Harry’s arrival, which meant that he was on edge again by the time he climbed into the passenger seat of Harry’s SUV at six sharp.

Harry evaluated Jack carefully with a furrowed brow, noticing the tension in the air immediately. “Did something happen?” he asked as he navigated out of the parking garage and onto the busy street outside, making a turn into traffic that had Jack grappling with the door in an effort to keep himself from spilling straight into Harry’s lap.

“No,” Jack replied carefully. “But there is something you should probably know.” He gave Harry a quick summary of the nature of his relationship with Saoirse, carefully averting his eyes so he wouldn’t have to see or guess at Harry’s reaction to the story.

Harry was silent for a moment after he’d finished, and when Jack finally mustered up the courage to look back over at him, there was an expression of determination on Harry’s face. “We should really sell our relationship over dinner,” he said, surprising Jack with the vehemence behind his words.

“What do you mean?” Jack wondered.

Harry glanced over at him for a split second before turning his eyes back toward the road. “Just follow my lead,” he said.

Jack nodded after a moment’s hesitation and really hoped he wouldn’t end up regretting that decision later.

They were the first to arrive at the restaurant, and after they’d been seated, Harry ordered them both a bottle of wine to tide them over until Calum and Saoirse showed up. Jack stared down at the wine list in defeat after the waiter had left, his chest tightening up at the prices alongside each entry. “I’m paying for dinner,” he told Harry, deciding to clear it up now rather than making a scene later on in front of his brother and his ex.

Harry’s expression didn’t change as he reached into his pocket and pulled out his wallet. He slid a card across the table at Jack. “Use that, then.”

Jack didn’t take it. “I’m not going to use your credit card,” he argued. It was a matter of principle. His dignity was at stake.

Harry lifted an eyebrow. “I’ll take it out of whatever Pam’s compensating you for if you’d like,” he replied. “But just use it. All right?”

Jack didn’t respond as he begrudgingly placed the card inside his billfold to use later.

It hadn’t escaped Jack’s attention that there were many eyes within the restaurant trained on him and Harry from the moment they’d entered. They were seated near the back, but that didn’t stop people around them from glancing over their shoulders to get a look at them—or at Harry, rather. Jack didn’t think that anyone would be gutsy enough to pull out a phone and start filming them in full view of the wait staff, but there were no guarantees, so he made a mental note to comport himself as if the whole world was watching.

Thankfully, Calum and Saoirse arrived only a few minutes after Harry and Jack had been seated, preventing any need for either of them to try and make awkward small talk—and it would have been awkward, thanks to how their trip together had ended.

Seeing Saoirse for the first time in…months, maybe a year even, was like being hit in the face with a football. Jack wasn’t even sure how to look at her, too afraid that if they made even the briefest second of eye contact, she would know immediately that he had never really gotten over her.

Jack found himself tapping the table next to his silverware in an anxious rhythm as he waited for them to sit down. Harry looked over, noticed the tic, and smoothly placed his hand over Jack’s, quieting the motion. When Jack glanced up at him, Harry was smiling softly in reassurance. Jack wondered if that meant Harry had forgiven him for almost coming on his back while he’d been asleep last night.

The waiter descended upon them once more almost as soon as Calum and Saoirse had taken their seats. He poured them each a glass of wine from the bottle Harry had requested, and then inquired as to whether they were ready to order. After finding out that they still needed some time, he left again, leaving Jack to finally sort out the introductions.

“Harry, this is my brother Calum, his girlfriend Saoirse. Both of you obviously know _of_ Harry already, but I promise he’s less of a prick in person.”

That got a laugh out of Harry, and a chuckle from Calum, but Saoirse just looked mildly uncomfortable as she smiled at Harry and then Jack, in turn. Jack averted his eyes as soon as she looked over, concentrating on Harry’s fingers overlaying his own on top of the tablecloth instead.

The tense introductions were only a taste of what followed as Jack struggled to lie directly to Calum and Saoirse’s faces about his relationship with Harry. He tried to steer things toward safer avenues as much as possible, throwing out tangents about work whenever he could fit them into the conversation.

But Harry wasn’t really helping matters.

He’d taken advantage of the waiter coming by again to take their orders to move his hand from the top of the table to Jack’s thigh, and over the course of their conversation with Calum and Saoirse, that hand had been climbing steadily higher and higher.

Jack finally looked over and gave him a warning glance when their food arrived, but Harry ignored him with a blissful smile, not even removing his hand to eat. Jack did his best to ignore it, since physically removing Harry’s hand would only draw the others’ attention, but it was easier said than done when Harry’s fingers were close enough to his groin that his cock had started to take an interest.

Jack forked his food into his mouth a bit more aggressively and downed as much wine as he could handle. If this was some sort of sick revenge on Harry’s part for what had happened between them the night before, he wasn’t about to let Harry get any sort of satisfaction out of it.

But Saoirse, as observant as ever, seemed to notice in spite of Jack’s efforts that something was wrong. “Are you all right?” she asked with a frown, looking from Jack to Harry and then back again.

“Fine,” Jack replied stiffly. “We just—we had a long drive is all. I meant to take a nap earlier, but….” He shrugged, and then winced when Harry’s fingers curled even tighter on the inside of his thigh and squeezed. He was going to murder Harry, the first chance he got. Fame be damned.


	10. Chapter 10

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Twitter: @vondrostes & @vondrostesupd8s  
Tumblr: @vondrostes

Harry was visibly smug about his ‘accomplishment’ all the way out to the car, and that smugness was only exacerbated by the fact that Jack had to practically use Harry as a human shield to hide his semi as they made their way out of the restaurant. Things took an immediate turn for the worse, however, when they stepped out of the restaurant with Calum and Saoirse in tow only to be met with a barrage of flashing lights and aggressive questions hurled by the intrusive photographers who had apparently been lying in wait for them on either side of the gated entrance.

Jack wondered if Pam had been the one to tip them off, or whether a fan had done it organically. He wasn’t sure he wanted to know.

Jack pulled Harry even closer, framing his hands so that it looked like he was performing the protective duties of any good boyfriend when their partner was being beset by rabid photographers, rather than the truth of the matter, which is that he was conveniently using Harry’s body to disguise his erection from the cameras. It would do them both a disservice if Jack’s cock managed to end up in a magazine, but Jack would certainly suffer a lot more for it, and besides—it was Harry’s fault it was even an issue in the first place.

Somehow, the four of them successfully ran the gauntlet, and Jack breathed a sigh of relief as they approached the relative safety of the car park around back. That safety was short-lived, unfortunately, as just when Jack turned to say goodbye to his brother and Saoirse, he noticed a wayward paparazzo making a beeline for the lot of them.

“We’d better get going,” Jack said hastily, already steering Harry away from Calum and toward where their car was parked. “I’ll see you around, yeah?”

Calum couldn’t even get out a response before Jack and Harry were accosted by the rogue photographer, who circled them aggressively as they tried to make it to the car without engaging with the man.

“So you’re gay now, Harry?” the pap was asking. “Had enough of the cougars and teen pussy and decided to try something new?”

He was just trying to get a rise out of Harry, something quotable, a good soundbite. Jack knew that, but he still wanted to punch the guy straight in the face.

Harry reached up and wrapped his hand around where Jack had placed his own hand on Harry’s waist and gave Jack’s fingers a quick squeeze. He gracefully ignored the pap even as the man continued to ask more and more vulgar shite that Jack knew he’d be seething over for days. And then they were both in the car at last, the doors closed, deafening any further taunts.

Harry closed his eyes for a moment and sucked in a deep breath now that they finally had a reprieve from the chaos outside, but Jack still had a more pressing matter on his mind.

“What the fuck were you playing at in there?” he demanded.

Harry blinked his eyes open and stared over at Jack with a perfectly innocent expression as he put the key into the ignition. “We were on a date,” Harry pointed out. “A bit of flirting is to be expected.”

“A fake date,” Jack countered through gritted teeth. “Some _boundaries_ are to be expected.”

Harry shot Jack a scathing look as he turned out of the car park. “You mean like not rubbing one out on someone’s back while they’re asleep? Or even when they’re not, I suppose.”

Jack felt his face go hot. He turned to stare out the window at the darkened London streets, too embarrassed and furious over the culmination of everything that had occurred between himself and Harry that he didn’t even have the energy to try and come up with a pithy retort.

Jack remained silent the whole way back to his flat, but when they pulled into the garage, Jack found himself pulling fruitlessly at the door handle. Harry hadn’t unlocked it yet. Jack turned to shoot a glare at Harry, whose smirk was only barely contained as he stared unabashedly back.

“Not going to invite me up for a cuppa?” Harry quipped. “I thought our date went rather well, considering.” He stared Jack down for a few more seconds and then released the locks.

Jack jumped out of the car without even bothering to formulate a response. When he made it to the lifts this time, he didn’t look back. He spent the rest of his evening alone in his flat, silently sulking and hoping that in his big, ugly, Americanised house, Harry was doing the same.

Jack woke up the next morning to his phone buzzing somewhere near his head. After rifling amongst his pillows for the damn thing, he was disappointed to find Pam’s name on the caller ID, and he lifted it to his ear with a sullen, “Hello?”

She kept the call short and to the point. Jack was expected to meet with her again back at Harry’s house in exactly two hours, which gave Jack barely any time at all to get dressed and showered before taking a cab all the way across town to Hampstead.

Almost immediately after Jack arrived at Harry’s not-so-humble abode, things started to unravel again.

“What’s wrong with the two of you?” Pam demanded.

Harry and Jack exchanged a wary glance. They’d been seated next to each other for all of five seconds, but the tension in the room was thick enough that Jack could feel it, like a heavy blanket draped over him, weighing him down—suffocating him. Apparently, Pam could feel it, too.

Harry was the first to offer an answer. “Nothing,” he replied uneasily.

Pam narrowed her eyes, and it was plain to see from her cynical expression that she didn’t believe him for a second. “Work it out,” she told them, “whatever it is, because you have a week left until the charity dinner, and I don’t have time to babysit the two of you. I’m swamped with everything else as it is.”

She cleared her throat and glanced down at her tablet, not giving either of them a chance to respond before launching into a detailed analysis of the results of their initial week of ‘extracurricular promotion’, as she termed it. Jack didn’t understand a single word of what she was saying, but she seemed happy enough with whatever statistics she’d collected and even offered the both of them a ‘congratulations’ at the end of it.

Jack felt a bit uncomfortable about that part, but he wasn’t exactly sure why.

After the briefing, Pam gave each of them a courtesy copy of their itinerary for the trip to Paris, and on the way out, she pulled Jack aside, telling him in no uncertain terms that if there were any problems, that he should call her _immediately_.

Harry stood off to the side, watching the whole exchange without saying a word. When Pam was gone, he turned and walked into the next room, leaving Jack stood there in Harry’s entryway-slash-dining room, at a complete loss for what to do next.

The smart thing to do probably would have been to leave right then and there. There wasn’t anything else for him and Harry to go over, and he’d acted alongside co-stars he’d absolutely despised in the past. The charity dinner itself wouldn’t be a problem so long as Harry did his part.

But something in the back of Jack’s mind told him to stay.

Jack found Harry in the kitchen, his back turned to the door and halfway inside his fridge. He glanced up at Jack for a brief second when he turned around, but there was nothing in his expression to indicate that he was surprised by Jack’s presence, nor did he break his silence as he amassed a collection of ingredients on the granite countertops while Jack stood back and watched.

“You aren’t gonna invite me to stay for tea?” Jack finally piped up, his lips curling into the hint of a smile despite his best efforts to remain expressionless.

Harry looked up warily, his hands stilling over the cutting board in front of him as he stared at Jack. “Do you even want to?” he asked in a quiet tone.

“Well, we are supposed to be making this work,” Jack replied, gesturing between them. “Can’t really do that if we’re ignoring each other, now, can we?”

“Suppose not.” Harry looked down again at the onion halves laid out, his hand hovering the knife over them for a moment before he abruptly set it down with a sigh. “I’m sorry, all right?” he offered. “It was fucked up, but….”

Jack didn’t need any clarification to know that Harry was referring to his antics in the restaurant the night prior. “But?”

Harry shook his head. He chopped through the onion, once, twice. “But nothing,” he finally replied. “It was fucking mental of me to pull something like that. I shouldn’t have done it.”

Now Jack found himself in the precarious position of having to accept Harry’s apology or outright reject it. He sucked in a deep breath and released it as a sigh. “Aye, well, I suppose we’re even, so. Apology accepted.”

If Harry was happy at hearing that, there wasn’t any outward sign of it. He just continued to chop everything before separating it all into various containers, and when the veg was done, he started in on a raw chicken breast, carefully dicing it before tossing it into a pan on the cooker.

“Mexican, eh?” Jack asked as he braced his forearms against the countertop, adopting a more casual stance as he watched Harry cook. It had become increasingly obvious over the last few minutes that he was making tacos. Or fajitas maybe. Jack wasn’t sure yet.

Harry glanced up sharply at him as he moved over to the sink to wash his hands. “What’s wrong with Mexican?” he said suspiciously.

“Nothing! Just wouldn’t have pegged you for it.”

Harry’s expression softened a little. “What would you have pegged me for?”

Jack struggled to come up with a good answer to that. “Chinese?” he finally tried.

“Close,” Harry said with a laugh. “I do have a certain fondness for Tokyo that necessarily extends to the food, but I find it’s a bit harder to recreate.”

“Well, you could hire a personal chef, right?” Jack pointed out.

Harry shrugged and turned around to stir the chicken simmering in the pan. “I could,” he replied, “but that doesn’t mean I want to. I like cooking. I don’t get to do it all that often.”

“Fair play.” Jack watched Harry without speaking for a little bit longer, but unlike their previous bouts of silence, this one felt…comfortable, somehow. Still, Jack was a rather talkative sort, and now that he and Harry had made nice, he could only go so long without lapsing back into some kind of conversation. “Your contract expires tomorrow, right?”

Harry looked over at him in surprise, like he didn’t expect that Jack would remember. “Yeah,” he replied, nodding. “It does.”

“You nervous about it?” Jack wondered

Harry narrowed his eyes. “Why are you being so nosy all of a sudden?” he asked, but there was no bite to the question.

Jack shrugged. “I’ve met your parents and your sister, but I still don’t know the least bit about _you_,” he replied.

Harry scoffed quietly as he turned again to add spices to the chicken before resuming stirring. “You know you could just Google it if you’re really that curious.”

“It’s not really the same thing, though, is it?”

Harry glanced over his shoulder at Jack, his expression mildly calculating. “Ask away, then,” he said airily.

Jack considered the abundance of things he didn’t know about Harry and wondered where to start. “Favourite colour?” he finally asked.

Harry gave him an unimpressed look. “Really?”

“I thought I’d start small,” Jack argued. “So?”

Harry rolled his eyes with a wry smile pasted across his face. “Guess.”

“You told me to ask,” Jack said.

“And now I’m telling you to guess,” Harry shot back smugly.

Jack glanced around at the décor inside Harry’s kitchen, hoping to find a clue. “Green?” he tried.

Harry shook his head. “Nope.” He didn’t elaborate further, and Jack just watched as he finally took the chicken off the burner and set it aside. He ducked back into the fridge, emerging with soft tortillas in hand and a small pot of salsa.

“How hot is that?” Jack asked dubiously, now distracted from his questioning by the prospect of having his taste buds eroded by whatever monstrosity Harry Styles kept in his fridge.

Harry took one look at Jack’s face and cracked up. “It’s mild,” he reassured him. “Living in LA hasn’t changed me that much.”

Jack doubted that, but he wasn’t prepared to argue the point. “How is it there, by the way?” he wondered as he helped Harry move everything from the countertops to the kitchen table. “I’ve never been before.”

“Colder than you’d think,” Harry replied. “Though I’ve always gotten cold easily, so it might just be me. Summer weather’s brilliant, though, and it’s always nice to be able to go to the beach whenever you want.”

“And how much do _you_ go to the beach?” Jack asked sceptically. He couldn’t imagine Harry going anywhere in a place like LA without being mobbed.

Harry seemed to know what he was getting at without it being spelled out. He helped himself to the food, glancing over to check Jack’s progress from across the table as he followed suit. “More than you’d think if you were someone who followed the tabs,” Harry replied cryptically. “It’s not hard to disappear if you really want to.”

Jack was curious just how often Harry employed that particular tactic, but for whatever reason, he couldn’t bring himself to ask. He decided to change the subject, wanting to make the most of the time they were spending together. He wasn’t sure just how long Harry’s agreeable mood would last.

“I’d ask if you’re religious but—” Jack nods pointedly at the cross hanging from Harry’s neck.

Harry glanced down at the ornament before meeting Jack’s eyes once more. “Well, I don’t want to sound like a cliché….”

Jack scoffed. “Let me guess, you’re not religious, you’re just spiritual?” He followed up the question with a bite of his taco, and his eyes widened in surprise.

“Got it in one.”

“This is really good, by the way,” Jack replied, changing the topic again.

Harry didn’t seem the least bit perturbed by the fact that Jack’s mouth was still full as he delivered the compliment, thankfully. “I aim to please,” he said, with a peculiar look in his eye.

Jack shifted around uncomfortably in his seat and lowered his gaze as he continued eating. It wasn’t too long before lifted it again. He hadn’t even begun to fully satiate his curiosity regarding Harry.

“Where’s your favourite place you’ve travelled?” he asked next. “And don’t say Tokyo.”

Harry seemed a bit taken aback by the question. “God,” he breathed, giving his head a shake. He sighed. “It’s going to sound so—fake—but, Ghana, probably.”

“Ghana?” Jack certainly hadn’t been expecting that answer. “Why were you in Ghana?”

“A charity thing,” Harry replied dismissively, but there was a tightness around his eyes and lips that belied his glib answer. Clearly, something about the trip had affected him more deeply than he was letting on. “I haven’t been back yet, but…someday, I think. When I have a bit of time to myself.”

Jack was tempted to ask for more information, but he didn’t want to push Harry too hard. “What would you be doing if you weren’t a singer?” he asked instead.

Harry laughed lightly. “I was going to study law of all things, if you can believe that, but I don’t think I’d have made for a very good lawyer.”

Jack examined his face for a few seconds before answering. “I don’t know about that,” he finally replied.

Harry lifted an eyebrow. “You think?”

Jack shrugged. “You can be very…persuasive, when you want to be.”

“I suppose.” Harry crunched through another bite of his taco and swallowed hard. He opened his mouth again before Jack had a chance to think up another question. “Can I ask you something now?”

“Sure,” Jack replied, nodding slowly. He wasn’t sure he was ready for whatever Harry was planning to ask, but fair was fair.

“Do you think you’ll ever get married someday?”

The question took Jack by surprise, and he didn’t have an answer right away. He had to think about it for a minute or two, contemplating the current path of his career and where he hoped to end up, trying to fit an undefined female presence into the picture of his life.

Complicating matters was the fact that when he’d been with Saoirse, even though they’d never had the relationship talk to begin with, Jack had been more than convinced they’d end up married. He’d fallen in love with her instantly, and had already started to contemplate them having a future together when she broke up with him. It had been one of the reasons he’d taken it so hard, one of the reasons he’d resented Calum so much after. It was the reason he still wasn’t over her completely, he suspected.

“I think I’d like to,” Jack finally answered. “Someday. I can’t imagine it right now, though.” He blinked a few times at Harry, whose mouth had creased into a slight frown as he listened to Jack speak. “What about you?”

“Me?” Harry parroted.

Jack nodded. “Do you think you’ll ever get married?” He wondered even as he asked whether Harry would visualise a man or a woman in his mind’s eye, but he wasn’t quite rude enough to consider asking that sort of thing.

Harry took even longer to answer than Jack had. “I don’t know,” he said at last. “I don’t really think…. It’s hard sometimes—” He cut himself off, looking frustrated.

Jack waited patiently for Harry to collect his thoughts, not wanting to interrupt.

When Harry finally continued, he looked up directly at Jack, his expression almost pleading in a way. “Sometimes I’m afraid I’m never going to actually settle down, y’know?”

Jack nodded. “You don’t have to,” he said earnestly, “if you don’t want to.” He almost added, ‘You should do whatever makes you happy,’ but bit it down at the last second.

“No, I know,” Harry responded with a sigh, “it’s just that I’m a bit of a romantic as well, so I can’t help but fantasize about having, you know, a home somewhere, I guess.” He was silent again for a moment before continuing, and when he spoke again, he was careful this time not to meet Jack’s eyes. “I know you shouldn’t make homes out of people, but with lives like ours, it’s a bit difficult not to, innit?”

Unfortunately, Jack couldn’t say he disagreed.

They finished up lunch fairly quick after that, and with little excuse to hang around even longer, Jack found himself edging reluctantly toward the front door. “I should head back, I suppose,” he said a bit awkwardly.

Harry nodded, his bottom lip pulled up between his teeth like he wanted to say something back, but was fighting it. Finally, he replied, “I’ll see you on the plane.” And that was it.

Jack found himself fighting back a wave of disappointment as he left the house, something inside him yearning, wishing that there had been something more.


	11. Chapter 11

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Twitter: @vondrostes & @vondrostesupd8s  
Tumblr: @vondrostes

Jack couldn’t even muster the energy to be surprised when he walked into his flat to find both Calum and Saoirse sat cosily together on his tiny sofa. They both turned to look at him in unison as he walked into the kitchen to dump his keys in the tin, but it wasn’t until Jack turned back around again that he noticed Calum had his phone pressed to his ear, which could only mean one thing.

Jack pulled his own phone out of his pocket and looked down at the screen in dismay to find that he had six missed calls from his maw. _Six_. He was really in for it now.

“Yeah, he’s here now,” Calum was saying from the sofa. “Yeah, all right, all right. I’ll tell him. Hang on.”

Jack froze in place as Calum spun around to face him, phone in hand.

“She wants to talk to you,” Calum told him out loud. “She’s upset,” he mouthed. Calum extended the phone out toward Jack, who had no other choice but to take it.

Jack had never once felt frightened _by_ his maw, but he’d always been deathly afraid of disappointing her, even more than his da, who he’d long since decided was incapable of being impressed by any of Jack’s accomplishments anyway.

Jack pressed the phone to his ear and quickly walked into his bedroom, already knowing that he didn’t stand a chance of concentrating on whatever his mother had to say with Saoirse sat there in the same room listening to every word he said in reply.

“Jack?” His maw’s voice was every bit as frantic as he’d anticipated.

“I was busy with a work thing,” Jack hurriedly told her. It wasn’t, strictly-speaking, a lie. “I would have called you back, but I only just now got home.”

His maw continued as though she hadn’t even heard his excuse. “Why didn’t you tell us?” she demanded.

Jack was at a loss for a few seconds. “Tell you what?” he replied, flabbergasted by the unexpected question.

“About the—that you’re—”

Jack’s heart sank. Right. His parents must have seen anything and everything to do with Harry and him now thanks to Calum and Jodie. It was no wonder she wanted some kind of explanation.

“You could have told us,” his maw continued in an injured tone. “We wouldn’t love you any less just because you’re gay, Jack.”

Jack pressed his thumb and forefinger to his eyes and grimaced. He hated lying to his maw most of all, and he’d hoped he would manage to get out of this mess without her being any the wiser to the whole scheme, but that was an impossibility now. And Jack knew that telling the truth would only hurt her even more.

“I’m not…gay,” he replied slowly. “It’s complicated. I’m just…me.”

“But you’re dating that boy, aren’t you?”

“Yes,” Jack replied reluctantly. “I didn’t want to tell you until it was serious,” he lied. “I didn’t realise we were being photographed,” he lied again.

“I don’t understand,” his maw said.

Jack bit back an exasperated sigh. “Look, can we have this conversation a bit later?” he replied. “I just got home, like I said.” He didn’t wait for a response before turning around and heading back into the sitting room, where his brother and Saoirse were still patiently waiting on his sofa. “I’m giving you back to Calum now,” Jack said pointedly before handing Calum the phone.

Jack pointedly ignored Saoirse as he passed by her again to go back to his bedroom. Once inside, he decided to change even though the clothes he’d worn to Harry’s house hadn’t been on his person long enough to actually warrant being tossed in with the rest of his dirty laundry. He carefully set them aside as he undressed, only to be interrupted during the process by Calum suddenly barging into the room—alone, thankfully—and closing the door behind himself with an exaggerated frown.

“What?” Jack demanded, tugging a t-shirt down over his head as he waited for his brother to come right out with it.

Calum leaned back with his palms braced against the door, as though prepared to bar Jack from leaving if he tried. “How long has this been going on?” he asked, and there was a detectable note of suspicion that hadn’t been present in his voice the last time they’d discussed Harry.

Evidently, Jack hadn’t succeeded in reassuring their maw in the slightest.

“A couple months,” Jack replied vaguely. “We were both working a lot before, so it wasn’t anything I thought I needed to bring up with the family.”

“How about the fact that you’re apparently interested in men?” Calum challenged.

The problem was that Jack wasn’t interested in men at all, but telling Calum that certainly wasn’t going to wrap up this conversation any quicker. “Is that something I’m required to disclose to everyone now?” Jack snapped back in lieu of a better answer.

Calum’s expression softened a little. “We’re your family, Jack. Can’t you see why we’d be hurt that you didn’t feel like you could tell us?”

“How could I when Da has always been—” Jack cut himself off. He’d started to stray too far away from the fabricated narrative of his relationship with Harry and into reality instead, and that was a dangerous prospect. “Harry and I are dating now,” Jack continued resolutely. “That’s all there is to know.”

“And the pictures of you in the tabloids?” Calum questioned.

Jack shrugged. “He’s a lot more famous than me. I wasn’t really prepared for all that paparazzi shite at first.”

Calum still didn’t look entirely convinced, but he moved away from the door, his fingers lingering on the knob as he eased it open again. “Well, Saoirse and I are going to be in town for a while longer, if you want to do something over the weekend,” he offered.

Jack suspected it was an attempt at making peace, even though he couldn’t think of anything worse than spending an entire weekend enduring the presence of his ex-girlfriend while most likely engaging in some sort of activity he loathed. Thankfully, Jack had a ready-made excuse to decline. “Harry’s got a thing coming up,” he replied vaguely. “So I actually won’t be in London.” He didn’t give any more details, and thankfully, Calum didn’t ask for them.

“Right,” Calum said, nodding as he edged his way out the door. “Maybe when you’re back, then.”

Jack followed him out of the bedroom to say a proper goodbye at the front door to his flat, pretending all the while that wrapping his arms around Saoirse to hug her in farewell didn’t feel like embracing a livewire.

He was shaken by the encounter, undeniably, even though he and Saoirse hadn’t exchanged a single word the whole time she’d been in his flat, and Jack found himself using that as justification for what he found himself doing just as soon as she and Calum had left.

Harry answered right after the first ring, taking Jack a bit by surprise with the speed of his response. “Did something happen?” he asked right off, with no greeting to ease into things.

“No,” Jack replied automatically. “I mean, yes, but not—never mind. Do you want to do something tonight?” Now that he’d gotten started, he couldn’t seem to stop himself from rambling. “I know we weren’t meant to see each other again until Paris, but I thought—”

“Yes, Jack,” Harry interjected. “But I already agreed to go to a party tonight, so as long as you don’t mind tagging along….”

“A party?” Jack parroted nervously.

“Just a few friends of mine is all,” Harry reassured him. “I’ll drop by at about five; is that all right?”

Jack nodded mutely before remembering that Harry required a verbal confirmation. “Aye. Yeah. That’s fine.” It wasn’t fine, not at all, but it was better than the alternative of sitting in his flat for the next however many hours dwelling on what had just happened with Calum and his mother.

Jack did however find himself at a loss for how to occupy himself until five o’clock rolled around. Much of it was spent nervously tidying up his flat in between despairing peeks at his closet, as though he thought that the second or third time he made a pass his wardrobe might have changed in the interim.

But when Harry finally arrived at his front door, he was nothing close to the chic, fashionable vision that Jack had expected to see on the other side. Instead, he was clad in nothing but a pair of dark jeans and a worn hoodie, his hair tied back messily into a bun. There were visible spots littering his face again, a reminder of the fact that he was just barely into his twenties and quite a few years younger than Jack himself. There was a black tote bag dangling from his elbow, but it was impossible for Jack to make out what was inside before Harry came sweeping into the flat and marched straight past him without a word.

Jack followed Harry into his own bedroom, where he found Harry already pulling various articles of clothing out of his tote and placing them neatly onto the bed. “What’s that about?” he asked, nodding curiously toward the all-black ensemble.

“My clothes,” Harry answered, “and a jacket for you. Mind if I pick out a shirt and trousers to go with it?” He looked up at Jack with a timid expression, like he was prepared to back off without question if Jack refused.

Jack nodded and just watched as Harry went to work. He sat shirtless at the end of his bed, staring straight into the blackness of his own closet without really taking in much of what he was looking at. He couldn’t stop himself from nervously tapping his own thigh as he waited, his mind occupied with paranoid thoughts about the prospect of having to convince Harry’s own friends that the two of them had somehow been secretly dating for more than a month.

Harry dithered inside the closet with his back to Jack for a few minutes before turning around with a couple options in hand. He froze when he caught sight of Jack’s face. “Are you all right?” he asked uncertainly.

Jack nodded. It was a lie, but he wasn’t about to back out now when he was the one who had wanted to hang out with Harry in the first place.

Harry moved over to him and set the shirts he’d procured down on the bed next to his other clothes. “I do massage therapy a lot in LA,” he said unexpectedly, hovering over Jack who was still sat on the bed, staring at nothing.

Jack finally looked up. “What?”

“Like for nerves,” Harry told him. “Sometimes I get stuck in my own head and all, and it helps calm me down. I could try it on you, if you want.”

Jack stared at Harry, having some trouble processing what he was asking. When he finally figured it out, he found himself nodding without even really thinking about the potential consequences, and then Harry was climbing up onto the bed behind him, his knees bracketing Jack’s hips as he carefully placed his hands on either side of Jack’s shoulders.

“All right?” Harry breathed into Jack’s ear.

Jack just nodded again and closed his eyes as Harry began to knead out the tension that had been building in his muscles for who knows how long without him realising. It hurt at first, but then he sort of felt like he was melting a bit, and his brain went all fuzzy from the pleasure. By the time Harry finished and finally pulled his hands away, Jack had nearly fallen asleep.

“Better?” Harry asked as he climbed off the bed.

“Yeah,” Jack replied hoarsely, though he wasn’t sure the boneless, floaty feeling he was currently experiencing would last long enough to get him through the rest of the night. It would do for now, though.

Harry made sure that Jack got dressed first, in a dark grey turtleneck buried at the back of his closet underneath the designer leather jacket he’d brought. They both wore nearly identical pairs of black skinny jeans, but Harry’s were considerably tighter, and the shirt he’d brought was comprised of nothing but sheer black lace, through which Jack could see all of Harry’s tattoos showing through.

“Not worried about the weather?” Jack asked once they were both fully dressed.

He’d meant it to lighten the mood, but Harry’s gaze felt even heavier when he turned around to face Jack again.

“You’ll keep me warm, won’t you?” Harry retorted.

Jack found himself nodding without even really meaning to. “Aye,” he replied, mouth a bit dry now. “Of course.”

Now that they were both dressed, Harry procured some hair product and a bottle of cologne from his bag and set himself on the task of touching them both up: with the product because he thought Jack looked nice with his hair slicked back, apparently, and with the cologne because he thought it would make it seem more authentic if they smelled like each other.

Jack thought that was a detail that no one in the world would consciously notice about two people, especially when one was a stranger, but he wasn’t about to argue the point with Harry, whose designer cologne had a hint of tobacco to it that sort of tricked Jack’s brain into thinking he’d just had a fag even though he hadn’t properly smoked in weeks now.

They took the lift down to the garage together, but the car waiting for them downstairs wasn’t the Range Rover that Jack had become accustomed to, but instead a sleek Audi that made his jaw drop when Harry lifted the key fob to unlock it.

“So where are we going?” Jack finally asked once they were properly on the motorway, the planes of Harry’s face illuminated in flashes of passing headlights in a way that made him look both much younger and much older all at the same time.

“Primrose Hill,” Harry replied. “It’s just a friend’s house.”

‘Just a friend’s house’ turned out to be a sprawling private estate nestled in a neighbourhood that Jack would have had no reason or right to be in without Harry escorting him there. Jack felt the embers of his earlier anxiety flare back into existence in the pit of his stomach as they pulled up alongside the line of fancy cars parked outside the house, and it wasn’t long before Harry noticed.

“I’d offer to give you another massage, but I think it might look a bit awkward if someone were to come outside,” Harry remarked with a wry smile as he turned off the engine.

He made no move to get out though, and Jack was grateful for that. He wasn’t sure he was quite ready to go inside and face Harry’s friends just yet.

They sat there for another minute or two in silence before Harry spoke again. “They’re just my friends,” he said in a soft voice. “I know it kind of seems…. They’re cool, I promise. They’ll like you.”

Jack wasn’t entirely convinced of that, but he supposed it wasn’t going to do him any good to sit and hide in Harry’s ludicrously expensive car all evening. He pushed open the door with a sigh and slowly climbed out, surprised when Harry popped up in front of him before he’d even fully emerged.

Jack wasn’t sure whether to be reassured or worried when Harry extended his hand toward Jack, but Jack took it. And together they walked hand in hand into the large, looming house.

From the second they walked through the front doors, it was painfully apparent to Jack that they were the subject of most interest to the other guests within, but Harry didn’t stop to talk to a single one as they made their way deeper into the house. Everyone’s eyes unashamedly followed Jack and Harry—who seemed to be blissfully oblivious to the attention—all the way from the foyer to the kitchen, where Harry finally let go of Jack as he dashed around the island counter to hug a dark-haired man who was leant against the sink.

Jack thought the guy looked vaguely familiar, but he didn’t keep up with the music industry the way he did with film, so it was impossible to put a name to the face.

Harry was certainly familiar enough, though, rubbing up on the other man like a cat desperate for a scratch despite the fact that Jack was still stood right there and they were pretending to be in a romantic relationship.

“Didn’t think you were going to show,” the dark-haired man said to Harry in a Northern accent that Jack didn’t expect to come out of his mouth. The man’s eyes flicked up to meet Jack’s with a piercing gaze. “And who’s this, then?”

Harry finally wriggled out of the man’s hold and scampered back over to Jack, looping an arm loosely around his waist. Jack returned the gesture automatically, hoping it looked more natural than it felt.

“Come off it, Nick,” Harry replied in a petulant tone. He squeezed Jack a little tighter. “Don’t pretend you haven’t seen the photos.”

Nick lifted his drink in surrender. “You caught me. I’m just offended we haven’t been introduced before now is all.”

“It’s nothing personal,” Harry replied quickly.

Nick’s eyes remained on Jack as he responded. “You’re lucky it’s your birthday tomorrow, or I’d be forced to be a lot more upset with you for keeping secrets.”

Jack was careful not to react to Nick’s comment about it being the eve of Harry’s birthday. As his fake boyfriend, that was probably information he should have known before they’d gotten to the party (and was it a birthday party or just a coincidence?) but seeing as Harry had failed to inform him of that fact, it was on him now not to tip his hand by looking every bit as surprised as he felt after hearing it.

Harry let out a soft sigh. “Jack, Nick; Nick, Jack. Now you’ve been introduced. Happy?”

Nick sipped his drink and continued to stare at Jack with an evaluating expression. “It’ll do,” he finally replied. “Actor, right?” he said, nodding toward Jack as he lowered his drink again. “I meant to look you up when I saw the headlines, but it slipped my mind.”

Jack was slow to react to what he was just now realising was meant to be a jibe. He wasn’t sure why Nick seemed so put off by him, but it was exactly the sort of nightmarish scenario he’d been imagining on the car ride over. So much for all of Harry’s friends being really cool or whatever.

“If you’re going to ask if you’ve seen anything I’ve been in,” Jack replied, “the answer’s probably no.”

Nick laughed a little at that, but his gaze quickly turned hawkish again as he looked over at Harry. “And how exactly did you two meet, then?”

The implication seemed to be that if Jack wasn’t famous enough for Nick to know who he was, then he wasn’t in Harry’s league, but Jack didn’t rise to the bait.

“I have a friend who took me to a show,” Jack fibbed. He was coming up with the lies completely off the cuff now, but somehow it was easy, even with Nick staring them both down like he was just waiting for an opportunity to call their bluff. “We met for a bit backstage.”

“Which show?” Nick asked.

“Glasgow,” Harry interjected smoothly.

Nick frowned. “Wasn’t that when you were still with—”

Harry cut him off before he could finish the question. “We only just started going out recently,” he replied. “Hence why I didn’t announce it to everyone.”

Nick nodded slowly, but it was plain to see from the look on his face that he wasn’t buying their story for a second.

“Look,” Harry continued with a sharp inhale, “I should probably make the rounds and see Cara and them, so. Drinks?”

Nick nodded and turned around to make them both some sort of concoction with the various liquors on the counter behind him. Harry took the opportunity to glance over at Jack, his face pulling into an apologetic grimace that disappeared just as Nick turned back around again, their drinks in hand.

“Cheers,” Harry said, accepting both before handing one to Jack to take.

“Don’t be a stranger,” Nick called after them as they exited the kitchen together, their hands intertwined again between their bodies as they made their escape.


	12. Chapter 12

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Twitter: @vondrostes & @vondrostesupd8s  
Tumblr: @vondrostes

It was apparent from the start that Harry knew the house intimately, because he didn’t make a single wrong turn as they navigated the maze of hallways that led from the kitchen on the south side of the estate to the fire pit in the secluded back garden on the north end.

Jack stuck close to Harry’s side, though he was less afraid of getting lost than accidentally being pulled into a conversation with any of the dozens of young, fit socialites that seemed to be clustered within every nook and cranny inside the house.

Outside it wasn’t much better, and then when they finally approached the small group stood around the fire, it suddenly got much, much worse.

Jack watched in abject horror as Harry broke away from him to embrace, in turn, a man and woman Jack didn’t recognise before turning to pull in Cara Delevingne for a hug as well. Cara Delevingne. Jack had followed Cara on Instagram years ago (because he’d thought she was fit), and now she was here, hugging his fake boyfriend only a few yards away from where Jack was currently stood.

Jack was still frozen when Harry finally pulled away from Cara with a broad smile and made a sweeping gesture toward Jack himself. “Told you I’d introduce you to the new beau,” Harry said with a smug smile.

Jack wasn’t sure what to say. He opened his mouth, but nothing came out.

Luckily, Harry was quick on the draw. “This is Jack, obviously,” he said to his friends. “Jack; Cara, Alexa, and Henry.”

Both Henry and Alexa gave Jack a friendly wave, but Cara just stared him down with a piercing gaze, like she was trying to figure out where she’d seen him before. Jack was very certain she’d never seen him before. He would have remembered if she had.

As though sensing the fact that Jack was distracted by a fit bird who definitely wasn’t his fake boyfriend, Harry stepped into Jack’s space again and wrapped his arms snugly around Jack’s waist. He somehow maintained an entire conversation like that, while Jack stood there in relative silence, letting Harry field the questions about their relationship and only interjecting with sympathetic chuckles and nods whenever it was strictly necessary.

Eventually, the discussion drifted away from Harry’s new romance and onto other things, most of which Jack was too new to the group to understand the context of. He pretended to listen anyway, sneaking sideways glances at Cara all the while, and when Harry tugged him in close to whisper in his ear, for a single, terrifying moment Jack thought he’d been caught out.

“Nick’s watching us from inside the house,” Harry said in a low voice.

That was worse, actually, Jack thought, than being caught ogling your (fake) boyfriend’s model friend, and Jack glanced down at Harry with undisguised terror in his face. He wanted to ask Harry what they should do, but the others were still stood right there, and it was impossible to have the conversation they needed to have thanks to Nick’s unforeseen observational aptitude.

Harry wasn’t looking for a conversation, though. He placed a hand on either side of Jack’s face, pulling him for a deep kiss that felt like it might never end.

Jack felt a bit dizzy when Harry finally pulled away, just as Cara let out a loud wolf whistle from where she was stood on the other side of the fire.

There was a maniacal look on her face as she grinned at the two of them, the flickering light casting odd shadows across her angular features. For whatever reason, it was then that Jack realised just how similar she looked to Harry, like they could have been fraternal twins separated at birth.

“Wouldn’t mind getting in on that,” she quipped, still grinning.

Jack caught Harry glancing once toward the house and then he looked back over at Cara again, his mouth curling into a smile to match hers. “It’s a little early, don’t you think?” Harry shot back.

It was like Harry acknowledging Cara’s comment opened the floodgates. Suddenly, all Jack could think about was Harry making good on that promise, on the three of them ending up in bed together, with Harry in the middle—

“I’m going to go grab us some more drinks,” Jack told Harry before quickly retreating in the direction of the house, discreetly adjusting himself in his trousers along the way.

Jack didn’t make it to the kitchen unhindered. Nick appeared in front of him without warning at the end of the hallway like a sinister jack-in-the-box, his eyes dark and serious as Jack skidded to a halt in front of him.

“Wanted to talk to you about Harry,” Nick said in a low voice.

“Uh, all right?” Jack replied uncertainly.

Nick glanced furtively around them and then took a step closer. “Not to be a giant bloody cliché,” he said as he moved in, “but if you do hurt Harry—ever—I will personally make sure that things do not go well for you in the future. Yeah?”

Jack nodded dumbly. “Yeah,” he said. “Yeah, I got it.”

Nick moved away to let him through, but Jack could feel the other man’s eyes still following him until he was safely within the confines of the kitchen and out of Nick’s line of sight.

Jack heaved a sigh of relief under his breath as he went through the process of making himself and Harry a second round of drinks. Getting drunk almost seemed like a necessity at the moment. As did having a smoke, but Jack hadn’t brought any fags with him and wasn’t about to start asking round the party for someone to bum one off of.

Jack didn’t know what the deal was with Harry and Nick, but there was clearly some history there that didn’t amount to just casual friendship. He believed Nick’s threat, wholeheartedly. But luckily for both Harry and Nick (and Jack, by association), none of this was real, and Jack wouldn’t ever have the opportunity to hurt Harry. At least, not in the way Nick was worried about.

With their re-filled glasses in hand, Jack hurried back out to the garden, not wanting to run into Nick again—or anybody else for that matter.

The remnants of Jack’s distress must have been plain to see on his face, because as soon as he re-joined the others around the fire pit outside, Harry clued into the fact that something was wrong immediately.

“You all right?” he asked quietly, brows furrowed in concern as he placed a comforting hand—as though on instinct—just above Jack’s elbow.

“Tell you later,” Jack replied shortly, hoping desperately that Harry would forget by the time the opportunity to do so came around.

Jack was thoroughly buzzed a few hours later when it finally started to seem like the party was winding down, and it was clear by the way Harry kept stumbling into him as they made their way back inside that Harry wasn’t faring any better.

“Should we call a cab or something?” Jack wondered. It was clear that neither of them were in any state to get behind the wheel, which in hindsight was something they probably should have thought about before.

“We can just spend the night here,” Harry replied dreamily. He seemed unconcerned about any of it, as though staying the night been his plan all along.

Maybe it had, Jack mused. Harry wasn’t exactly a top-notch communicator from what Jack had experienced thus far.

With little choice but to follow Harry’s lead, even though Jack didn’t have anything resembling pyjamas or a change of clothes with him, Jack nodded easily. “Okay,” he replied, bringing an unexpected smile to Harry’s face with just that simple response.

Jack found himself smiling back, and then suddenly Harry was extricating himself from Jack’s arm and moving toward the kitchen. “I’ll go tell Nick,” he called back before disappearing completely.

Jack stood in the middle of the sitting room, at a total loss for what to do until Harry got back. Thankfully, it didn’t end up being a long absence, and when Harry returned, it was sans Nick, which took the edge off a bit.

Right up until they went upstairs to the guest room they were meant to share and Jack realised belatedly that they would be sharing a bed. Again. Something he definitely wasn’t keen on after what had happened the last time.

Harry didn’t appear to be similarly concerned, which was a surprise. Or maybe he was, actually, and was just better at hiding it. Jack was a little too drunk to make such judgment calls, so he focused instead on stripping down to his boxers in the corner of the room while Harry did…something or other in the bathroom.

Jack was under the covers within minutes, but he could see Harry still stood in front of the bathroom sink, illuminated by the overhead lights, and it was impossible to tell just how much progress he’d made in getting ready for bed.

Jack had turned over and was in the middle of counting to a hundred in an effort to try and fall asleep before Harry joined him when a voice piped up from inside the bathroom.

“What happened earlier?” Harry asked. “When you went to get our drinks?”

Jack sighed quietly and rolled over to face the open doorway. Luck was never on his side it seemed. “Nick cornered me,” he admitted. “What’s the deal with him, anyway?”

Harry leaned back to peer out the open door at Jack. His face was perfectly neutral as he answered, not betraying a hint of untruth or emotion behind his words. “He used to have a thing for me,” Harry replied casually. “He’s just overprotective because we’ve been friends for so long.”

Jack wasn’t convinced in the slightest that ‘used to like’ was an apt descriptor for Nick’s feelings about Harry, but he figured there was no real benefit to arguing the point. His suspicions confirmed, he rolled over again and squeezed his eyes shut tight, hoping in vain to fall asleep quickly.

Jack was thwarted once again as soon as Harry turned on the shower. He didn’t even bother to close the door either, which meant that Jack could hear nothing but the sound of rushing water as Harry bathed practically right next to him.

Jack was still silently seething by the time Harry got out and climbed into bed with him, and it only got worse the longer he lay there, completely unable to sleep even though Harry’s breathing had already started to slow down and even out less than ten minutes after his head had hit the pillow.

Finally, Jack couldn’t take it anymore.

“What are you doing?” Harry mumbled sleepily as Jack extricated himself from the oppressive linens covering him before rounding the bed to head into the bathroom himself.

Jack didn’t answer; he just shut the door, locked it, and turned the shower back on with dismal aspirations of drowning his restless thoughts in the billowing haze of steam that quickly filled the room.

When Jack finally emerged, it was clear that Harry had already fallen asleep in the meantime. It didn’t fix the issue of having to sleep in the same bed, but it made it a bit easier to relax when Jack crawled back under the covers and curled up behind him.

Jack had decided to have a wank while he was in the shower, but it had been quick and relatively unsatisfying, nothing more than a physical release to let off some of his nervous energy. It had worked to some degree—before long, he found himself finally growing less hyperaware of every minute movement that Harry made, and eventually, he slipped away into blissful unconsciousness.

An indeterminate amount of time later, Jack found himself abruptly roused from sleep. It took a few seconds for him to register that the reason he was awake was because Harry was physically shaking him.

It was still pitch black outside their window, so it clearly wasn’t time to leave unless Harry was keen on sneaking out in the middle of the night for some reason, and to be perfectly honest, Jack was still feeling a little less than sober, which meant Harry was probably still drunk, too.

“What?” he finally whispered into the darkness.

Harry paused for a few seconds before answering. “You’re—you were…you know.”

Suddenly, Jack realised that his dick was indeed tenting his boxer shorts, and that he had no doubt been humping Harry Styles again in his sleep. He let out a groan and pressed the palms of his hands to his eyes as he rolled over onto his back, trying to ignore the teasing pressure of the blankets pulling at his erection as he moved.

“Sorry,” he rasped. “Give me a second and I’ll—”

Harry didn’t give Jack a chance to finish his sentence. There was a cool hand sliding up Jack’s thigh, pausing at his hipbone before fingers slowly crept under the waistband of his boxers. Harry had managed to brush his knuckles against his cock before Jack’s brain finally caught up to what was happening.

Jack’s hand shot out and seized Harry’s wrist. “Don’t—”

“Too much?” Harry asked.

Jack wasn’t sure how to answer that. His mind felt like it was made of jelly, and having Harry’s hand so close to his bits really wasn’t helping matters.

Harry tugged a little at Jack’s grip on his arm, which Jack took as his cue to release him.

Jack thought that would be the end of it, that he’d have to wank in shame in the bathroom again, but before he could make a move to climb out of bed, Harry was rolling onto his side again and scooting even closer to Jack, wriggling against him until the lines of their bodies were pressed up almost perfectly against each other.

“You can, you know,” Harry said in a low voice

Jack could feel the shifting of fabric against his hand, silk giving away to skin, and he didn’t need words to know what Harry was giving him permission to do.

Jack would have liked to have said that he was above rutting against Harry’s naked backside like an animal just to get himself off, but that would have been incorrect, because less than five minutes after Harry turned around, there was come covering Jack’s cock, and the sheets, and the silk dressing gown that Harry had worn to bed.

“Guess I’ll have to pay Nick back for the laundry,” Harry commented offhandedly, as though Jack wasn’t currently panting in his ear with his cock still pressed up against Harry’s arse.

That was the thing that finally jolted Jack back into rational thought, and he jumped out of bed quick as a flash to make an effort to clean himself up, at least. By the time he was finished, Harry’s robe was on the floor along with one of the inner sheets, and it appeared as though Harry himself had somehow managed to fall right back asleep again.

Luckily for Jack, his orgasm had imbued him with the sort of foggy feeling that made rational thought impossible, and it was all too easy for him to climb back into bed and do the same.

When Jack woke up again properly in the morning, the sun was brightly streaming in through the window, illuminating Harry, who was sat on the edge of the bed with his phone in hand, wearing a dressing gown nearly identical to the one he’d discarded during the night. Upon noticing Jack was awake, he turned and showed Jack the screen on his phone.

“Contract’s officially expired,” Harry said cheerily. “I’m free!”

“Congratulations,” Jack replied through a yawn. “And happy birthday, I suppose.” He wasn’t sure how to react when Harry leaned down to kiss him on the cheek in response to the well wishes, so he kept quiet and just stared blankly at Harry as he stood up and stretched luxuriously in the little strip of sunlight coming into the room.

“We should head downstairs soon if we want to grab some breakfast before we leave,” Harry said nonchalantly.

Jack nodded and started to get up and get dressed. It wasn’t until he was pulling his socks on that he realised Harry had made no such effort to follow suit. “You’re planning to go down in that?” Jack questioned, nodding toward the dressing gown that Jack knew for a fact Harry wasn’t wearing pants underneath.

Harry shrugged. “Well, I’m not going to do the walk of shame at breakfast, am I?”

Jack didn’t have a good response for that, so he just nodded along and followed Harry down the stairs and into the kitchen, where Nick was already waiting for them with a fry-up going on the cooker.

Jack wasn’t sure what to make of the eyebrow-raised expression on Nick’s face as he and Harry took a seat at the breakfast bar, but he decided to remain on-guard, just in case.

It turned out to be the right call.

“Thought the two of you would look more freshly debauched,” Nick remarked with an audible note of scepticism in his voice as he turned around to dish up a plate for each of them.

Jack managed to keep a straight face somehow.

Harry let out a genuine laugh. “You should take a trip upstairs to our room a bit later,” he shot back. “You can send my assistant the bill.”

Nick scoffed, but otherwise didn’t have much of a reaction to the comment, leading Jack to believe that maybe Harry had been right about him just being an overprotective friend.

Breakfast went better than Jack had expected, particularly when the trickle of other guests coming in and out of the kitchen distracted Nick from making any more comments about his and Harry’s sex life. Or lack thereof.

Cara ended up being one of the partygoers who had opted to stay the night, and Jack found himself giving her a very awkward hug after they’d finished eating and Harry had gotten dressed to leave. Somehow, he managed to survive even that.

Afterward, the journey to Jack’s flat was relatively straightforward. Harry merely reminded Jack of the details of their flight, and nary a word was said about the incident they’d had in the middle of the night.

Jack wasn’t planning on doing anything other than taking a nap and nursing his building hangover when he got back to his flat, but those plans abruptly changed when Harry pulled into the parking garage and Jack noticed an unfamiliar car parked in the spot reserved for his use.

“Shit,” he muttered under his breath as Harry pulled up to the lifts.

“What is it?” Harry asked. He looked genuinely concerned.

Jack shook his head. “My brother, again,” he guessed. Then a lightbulb went off in his brain. “Do you want to come up?” he asked, surprising even himself when the words came out without so much as a second’s hesitation. “I don’t think he’s bought the whole relationship thing, honestly, but maybe if—”

“Sure.” Harry was already pulling up alongside what Jack presumed was Calum’s rental, and had started to unbuckle his seatbelt before he even turned the engine off.

It was a bit strange, standing silently in the lift with Harry as they waited for it to arrive on Jack’s floor. Neither of them had discussed a plan for how they were expecting to convince Calum when they went inside, but Jack figured they could hold hands again, and maybe Harry could feed him some bullshit story about how in love he was. Harry seemed to be good at that.

Jack held up a hand for Harry to wait when they arrived at the front door to Jack’s flat. He pressed his ear to the door, listening for any signs that someone was inside, and was met with the hum of the telly in the background. Apparently, Calum had made himself at home while Jack had been gone.

“Ready?” Jack mouthed to Harry.

Harry nodded, his eyebrows taking on a determined slant. When Jack opened the door, Harry practically leapt on him, and suddenly Jack found himself stumbling backwards with Harry in his arms, his legs wrapped tightly around Jack’s waist and his mouth firmly attached to Jack’s own.

It wasn’t until Jack registered the sound of someone clearing their throat behind him that he remembered they weren’t alone. He spun around with Harry still in his arms, and then nearly dropped him when he caught sight of Saoirse stood in the hallway that led to his bedroom.

“Hi,” Jack blurted out as he let Harry slip out of his grasp. He steadied him automatically, pulling him into his side with an ease that should have felt less natural than it did. “Is Calum here?” he asked, still feeling a bit breathless.

Saoirse shook her head. Her eyes flickered over to Harry for a millisecond before focusing on Jack again. “He’s at the hotel,” she told him. “I wanted to talk to you myself, actually? But I guess it’s probably not a good time.”

“No,” Jack replied. His tongue felt leaden all of a sudden, like he could barely get the words out. “I mean, yes, it’s not really a good time. I’ll um, I’ll text you?”

Saoirse nodded tightly and took one last look at Harry before slipping out the front door.

Once she was gone, Jack extricated himself from Harry’s octopus-like grasp and moved into the kitchenette to make a pot of tea. “Well, that was a nightmare,” he commented, mostly to himself.

For a second, he almost forgot Harry was there, but when he turned around again, Harry was still stood in the doorway with his hands shoved into his pockets, looking like he was at a loss for what to do next.

“I suppose I should stay for a minute,” Harry said. “Until we’re sure she’s gone.”

Jack nodded. He’d forgotten that the whole point of Harry coming up was just to fool his brother, who wasn’t even around, as it turned out. “I’ll make you a cup of tea,” he offered, because that was the sort of thing one did when they inconvenienced someone.

“I prefer coffee, actually,” Harry replied with a grin.

Jack stared at him flatly. “You’re still British,” he shot back. “And I don’t own a coffeemaker. You’re getting tea.”


	13. Chapter 13

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Twitter: @vondrostes & @vondrostesupd8s  
Tumblr: @vondrostes

“You don’t like flying?”

Jack had been a nervous wreck all morning, jittery at the slightest sounds and fidgeting almost violently anytime he and Harry had a chance to sit down. It was worse now that they were buckled into their seats on the actual plane awaiting take-off. Jack hadn’t been able to keep his feet or fingers still.

Until Harry pointed it out, that is.

Jack consciously curled both his hands into fists and pressed them firmly against his thighs. He wasn’t a nervous flyer. He wasn’t nervous about making speeches or taking photos or in general, anything that was required of him as an actor. But this whole thing with Harry…that made him nervous.

“Flying’s all right,” Jack finally managed. “Just thinking about…later.” The prospect of having to act as himself (albeit a falsified version of himself) in front of a room full of hundreds of people was more daunting than any role Jack had taken thus far.

Harry smiled softly and reached over the armrest to twine his fingers with Jack’s, effectively stopping him from continuously fidgeting throughout the pre-take-off procedures. “Better?” he asked jokingly.

It _was_ better, though. “Honestly, yeah,” Jack replied, surprising even himself with his candour.

As a result, Harry didn’t take his hand away, even though there was no one to see them except Harry’s bodyguard, who had fallen asleep in the row behind them almost as soon as he’d sat down. Harry kept his hand linked with Jack’s even after they’d gotten in the air and were allowed to unbuckle their seatbelts—which Harry managed very awkwardly thanks to only having his left hand free.

Jack tipped his head back and gave Harry’s hand a little squeeze. In thanks, though it was impossible to properly convey the intent without words. He was confident Harry would understand regardless.

The flight from London to Paris wasn’t a long one, but it felt like they’d been flying forever when a young woman came walking up the aisle, spotted Harry, and suddenly froze in the middle of the narrow walkway. Jack was the first to notice her reaction, and he took a deep breath as he steeled himself for whatever was to come.

“Erm, excuse me?” the woman said timidly after managing to make her limbs work again. She approached them cautiously, like she was afraid a sudden movement would startle Harry into fleeing. Not that there was much chance of that with Jack still sat in the aisle seat, but, still.

Jack squeezed Harry’s hand to get his attention when Harry still didn’t look up. Finally, he pulled his nose out of the book he’d propped up on his lap early on in their flight and glanced up to meet the girl’s frantic stare with a patented celebrity smile.

“I suppose you’ll be wanting a picture, then?” Harry asked her.

“Oh, um, I don’t—I mean, I’m not—if it’s not too much trouble?"

Harry turned to Jack and raised his eyebrows pointedly. It took Jack a second to realise that he was meant to move. He ended up scrambling awkwardly out of his seat to let Harry out, dislodging their intertwined hands in the process.

Jack watched the whole exchange between Harry and the fan with thinly veiled disdain. He didn’t begrudge the girl her moment with Harry, of course, but Harry’s magnanimity felt like it couldn’t be sincere, not when this sort of thing must happen to him on a near-daily basis.

“Thank you so much,” the girl gushed after tucking her phone away and stepping back to allow Jack to re-take his seat. “Er, you’re really cute together, just by the way,” she added, her face bright red as she turned around without waiting for a response before darting away down the aisle to the back of the plane.

Jack glanced over at Harry to try to gauge his reaction to the comment.

“That was interesting,” Harry said placidly. His expression was more of a non-expression. Now that there wasn’t a pained smile plastered onto his face for the photo, he sort of looked like he might fall asleep at any second.

“I’m gutted she didn’t ask me for a picture as well,” Jack griped, and it was only half-joking, if he was completely honest.

Harry laughed the comment off and leaned back against his headrest, allowing his eyes to drift closed. “Wake me up when we land,” he said dreamily, and then he was out.

It didn’t take long for Harry’s head to roll off of his seat and onto Jack’s shoulder instead, but for whatever reason, Jack couldn’t bring himself to dislodge it. They sat like that until they landed in Paris, at which point Harry’s catnap came to an abrupt end as soon as Jack reached over to shake him awake.

“We’re here?” Harry said brightly, sounding far too awake for someone who had been deeply asleep less than ten seconds ago.

Jack just nodded and gestured toward the people in front of them who were already beginning the process of deplaning.

Harry’s bodyguard also doubled as a chauffeur, apparently—something Jack was relieved to discover, seeing as how Harry’s driving had been bad enough when they were on the right side of the road, instead of the backwards version the rest of the world chose to use for some reason.

Once they got into the back of their rental car with their luggage, the bodyguard shuttled them straight to their hotel, which was within sight of the Eiffel Tower, much to Jack’s carefully suppressed delight. He couldn’t take his eyes off it as they drove, but otherwise he did his best not to seem too much like a kid travelling outside the country for the first time.

Jack’s plans to remain unimpressed by the sights and sounds of Paris while in Harry’s company came to a screeching halt as soon as they reached the hotel, however. The building was massive, and very clearly luxurious, but that wasn’t the most breath-taking part of it. Jack’s jaw didn’t drop until they reached their room on one of the higher floors, at which point he walked up to the glass window that extended along one wall from floor to ceiling and looked outside to find a tropical oasis down below in an outdoor courtyard—the centrepiece: a blindingly blue swimming pool that looked unbearably tempting after spending a couple hours cooped up in a tiny, metal tube.

“We have time for a swim, right?” Jack double-checked, looking over his shoulder at Harry to make sure.

“We might,” Harry replied as he dumped their bags onto the bed itself before starting to sift through his belongings. “It might be better to wait until after the charity thing, though; there’s a few things we have to take care of first.”

Jack sighed and pirouetted into a nearby armchair. “Remind me of what those are again?” he asked. And then without waiting for an actual answer, he continued with: “We just got off a plane; I should at least be able to have a kip before we have to do actual work.”

Harry levelled Jack with a flat stare as he continued sorting through his clothes before eventually procuring an oddly coloured cardigan and draping it over himself while Jack watched. “You can kip once we’ve had our fill of the city.”

Jack raised his eyebrows at hearing that. “Where do we start?” he asked.

“Lunch,” Harry replied primly. “I’m not about to walk around Paris on an empty stomach.”

Jack nodded, easily swayed by the promise of food. That was something they could finally agree on.

He allowed Harry to pull him up out of the armchair, and once standing, Jack meekly followed him out of the room and down the corridor to the lifts. The silence that pressed in upon them once inside felt more strained than comfortable, but Jack was unable to pinpoint exactly why that was the case.

Jack expected to wait at the front entrance for Harry’s bodyguard to return with their rental, but after they walked through the doors together, Harry made an immediate left down the pavement and kept on going.

Jack had to jog a little to catch up with him. “You know, when you said ‘walk’, I didn’t realise you actually meant…walking.”

Harry glanced over at him with a tiny smirk. “Exercise is good for you,” he replied.

“What about your security bloke?” Jack wondered. Surely it wasn’t normal for Harry to go gallivanting around a strange city without the very security personnel he’d brought with him for the purposes of that trip.

Harry shrugged. “I’d take him with me if I was planning on going somewhere alone, but he mainly came with us just for some peace of mind. Like, in case a crazed fan breaks into the hotel and tries to steal my underwear or something.”

The casual eye roll that followed his statement seemed to suggest that Harry found the prospect entirely ludicrous, but the scenario was specific enough that Jack suspected it must have happened at some point in the past.

“Besides,” Harry continued, “I’ve got you with me, haven’t I?” He punctuated his rhetorical question by extending his hand out toward Jack, who had no choice now but to take it, despite his surprise at the gesture.

Jack couldn’t help but stare at the way their hands looked all tangled up in each other, his own pale and unremarkable next to Harry’s, tattooed and adorned with multiple rings on his fingers. Even their complexions were utterly different: Harry’s closer to olive than Jack’s ginger-pink.

“How long do we have to fake date before I get a ring, too?” Jack asked, trying to make a joke out of it.

Jack wasn’t expecting Harry to literally stop dead in his tracks, and he nearly tripped over his own feet at the sudden halt in their momentum as a result. When Harry then tugged his hand out of Jack’s grasp, he started to worry that he must have said the wrong thing and offended him. But Harry was merely pulling his phone out of his pocket, taking it out with a frown and typing something diligently on the screen. Finally, his face brightened with glee.

“What are you doing?” Jack wondered. He craned his neck to try and get a good look at the screen, but Harry deftly dodged his prying eyes.

“You’ll see,” Harry replied with a smug smile before tucking his phone back into his pocket and offering his hand again. This time, he spun them around one-hundred-and-eighty degrees and tugged Jack back down the pavement the way they’d come.

They passed by the hotel on their right and continued along the road until they came to the end of the block, at which point they crossed to the other side of the street and kept going in that direction for what felt like a few kilometres at least.

“What happened to not walking around Paris on an empty stomach?” Jack griped when he realised they were making a complete detour instead of getting food like Harry had promised.

Harry snorted and squeezed Jack’s hand a little tighter as he rounded the next corner.

Jack’s complaints were shelved when he found himself walking into an antique jewellery store behind Harry. His confusion only lasted for a brief moment, however; Harry immediately spun around to face him with a determined look in his eyes. “Pick a ring,” he said.

Jack was overwhelmed by the request and even more overwhelmed by the sheer number of options once Harry let him go so he could walk around the store freely. “Some of this shite is really expensive,” he muttered under his breath to Harry as they made the rounds.

“It doesn’t matter,” Harry replied dismissively.

It was easy enough for him to say that when he’d been a multi-millionaire since seventeen, but Jack was under considerably more pressure as a struggling actor who had no idea how to properly shop for the finer things in life, especially when those things were meant to be a gift that would be going on said multi-millionaire’s finger.

“I’ll like anything you pick, I swear,” Harry said encouragingly a few minutes later.

Jack turned to glare at him. “This might be a bit easier if you stopped hovering,” he pointed out.

“All right, all right,” Harry said, throwing his hands up in surrender as he backed away. “Just let me know when you’re ready to ring up.”

Jack could finally breathe again now that Harry wasn’t doing just that down his fucking neck, but it didn’t make his task any easier. He couldn’t believe Harry was willing to pay for a ring that Jack had picked as a symbol of their sham relationship just so he could wear it to this charity thing, where nobody there would even notice, most likely.

Jack continued drifting from display to display before finally settling on a tiny collection of Celtic-styled rings that managed to catch his eye as he slowly passed. There was one in particular, a raven’s head with trinity knots along the sides, that intrigued him enough to actually pull it out of the display stand so he could take a closer look.

Harry appeared at his side instantly as soon as he had the ring in hand, as though he’d been magically summoned there by Jack’s fingers brushing against the metal. Like a genie, Jack found himself thinking.

“Not too stereotypical?” Jack asked lightly, fishing for Harry’s approval.

“No,” Harry replied. “It’s a good choice, I like it. I picked something out for you as well while you were looking.”

Jack’s eyes widened in alarm. “I don’t really wear rings,” he protested. The idea of walking the red carpet or whatever with Harry while wearing matching jewellery was perhaps a bit too much for him to handle.

Harry shook his head. “It’s not a ring,” he reassured Jack. “But you’ll have to wait until later before you can see it.”

Jack was even more apprehensive after hearing that, but he chose not to kick up a fuss as they headed over to the till to pay for Jack’s jewellery selection.

The ring ended up needing to be re-sized, so Harry agreed that they would return to pick up their purchases later. Jack was fine with that even though it meant even more walking, but then Harry pulled out his card to pay for what they’d bought, and Jack suddenly realised the combined total was well over a thousand euros. He nearly had a heart attack and only just managed to save himself from collapsing right there in the shop by grabbing onto the counter for dear life.

“A thousand euros,” Jack hissed as they finally exited onto the street again. “A thousand!” He was aware that it was a bit gauche to be discussing price tags so frankly, but after spending more than a week in Harry’s company, Jack was starting to not care as much about what Harry thought of him anymore.

“It was closer to fifteen-hundred, actually,” Harry pointed out in a tone so bland he could have been discussing the weather.

“You shouldn’t have paid for both,” Jack protested, though it wasn’t like he could have afforded the other. “You should at least let me give you mine back once this is all over.”

“No.” Harry’s voice was sharp as he came to a sudden stop in the middle of the pavement.

Jack skidded to a halt alongside him, and the two of them stood there staring at each other, forcing random passers-by to weave around them as they both waited for the other to say something. “No?” Jack replied dumbly.

“No,” Harry repeated. “No, I want you to keep it. And it’s already paid for, so you might as well stop whining about it.”

Jack was stunned into silence by the unexpected rebuke, but he had no choice but to follow Harry as he started walking again.

Not another word was exchanged between them until they reached a building that finally imbued Jack with pure joy since the moment they’d landed in France: a genuine Parisian restaurant.

Jack was starving after his skipped breakfast, the flight itself, and then his jaunt with Harry around the city, so the moan of relief that escaped his lips as soon as they stepped inside and were assaulted by the smell of warm, fresh bread couldn’t be helped. When he opened his eyes again, Harry was staring at him with his mouth hanging open, but Jack couldn’t read what lay behind the surprise in his expression.

“Sorry,” Jack muttered. “I’m starving.”

“Yeah,” Harry replied hollowly as he turned to open the second set of doors for Jack to go through. “Me too.”

It wasn’t until they were being led to their table that Jack started to feel a tad uncomfortable about the situation. He waited until their waiter retreated before voicing his concerns. “You don’t think we’re a bit underdressed?” he asked Harry.

Harry’s nose was already buried in a menu. “Do you have to overthink everything?” he replied without looking up. “You should try enjoying yourself for a change.”

Properly chastised for the second time in less than an hour, Jack picked up his own menu and indulged himself in a bit of a sulk behind it as they waited for their waiter to return with something to drink.

Of course, the second Jack glanced at the menu he found something entirely new to worry about. Everything was in French.

Jack’s French was passable in a pinch, but suddenly he was terrified of embarrassing himself the second he opened his mouth; only it wasn’t the waiter’s opinion Jack was worried about, but Harry’s. Apparently, he did still care about what Harry thought of him. Or maybe that was just a side effect of making Harry lose his temper twice in one day.

Jack spotted the waiter walking over out of the corner of his eye and set his menu down in a panic. “Will you order for me?” he asked frantically.

Harry glanced up at him, clearly surprised. “What do you want?” he asked, confused by the question.

Jack shook his head. “I dunno,” he hissed, “whatever you think is good!”

And then the waiter was bearing down on them and there was no more opportunity to discuss the matter. Harry looked a little frazzled as he communicated their orders to the young man, starting first with his own choice before picking something for Jack as well.

Jack’s brain had already shorted out; he wasn’t even sure what Harry had picked for him, but he nodded in approval anyway when Harry glanced over, looking for confirmation that he had chosen correctly.

Everything was fine until Harry stopped the waiter before he could walk away. “Oh,” he added as an afterthought, “can we get the escargot as well?”

Jack couldn’t help the face he made upon hearing that, and there was no hiding it from Harry, who stared straight at him even as he made the request. Which confirmed Jack’s sneaking suspicion that it was some sort of test, one he was prepared for when the escargot arrived at their table a few minutes later.

“You have to try one,” Harry coaxed. He already had a bit of it impaled on the tines of his fork, extended out toward Jack like he was trying to feed an unruly child. “Please?”

Jack eyed the gelatinous entity with narrow-eyed suspicion. “You first,” he countered, calling Harry’s bluff.

He’d hoped it was a bluff, at least, but that didn’t seem to be the case as Harry lifted the fork and carefully placed the escargot on his tongue, extended just a bit toward his mouth like he intended to taste it _before_ actually consuming it. Jack’s gaze was transfixed on the bright pink blossom of Harry’s lips as they finally closed around his fork, leaving a spit-slick shine on the tines as he slowly pulled it out. Jack continued to stare as Harry slowly chewed and then gave an exaggerated swallow.

Harry beamed at Jack and stabbed another snail with his fork. “Your turn,” he said merrily.

Jack begrudgingly stuck out his hand to take the fork, but Harry shook his head and drew the utensil back. He went a bit red in the face when he realised what Harry’s intentions were, but at least the corner of the dining room they’d found themselves in was relatively uncrowded thanks to the early hour.

Jack leaned forward a bit and opened his mouth wide to receive the bounty of Harry’s silverware. He closed his eyes, waiting for a foul taste to hit his tongue as the escargot entered, but instead found his taste buds singing at the sweet tang garlic and butter that immediately assaulted his senses. He closed his mouth reflexively and chewed, still half-expecting there to be an unpleasant surprise waiting for him at the end, but there was nothing of the sort.

Jack blinked a few times, swallowed, and found himself wanting more. “It’s actually really good,” he said, still not quite believing it himself.

Harry’s mouth curved up into a self-satisfied smile. “See?” he replied. “New experiences _can_ be rewarding.”

*

Photo used for reference:


	14. Chapter 14

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Twitter: @vondrostes & @vondrostesupd8s  
Tumblr: @vondrostes

Jack started to feel uneasy about the way things were going as soon as he and Harry left the restaurant together.

Harry hadn’t offered to hold hands again, but that didn’t matter so much after the way their meal together had gone. Jack had slowly come to the realisation that it had felt more like a real date than plenty of actual dates he’d been on in recent months, and exacerbating that was the fact that he and Harry actually did get on quite well when Jack wasn’t spending a good fifty percent of his brain power worrying about what other people might think of them.

Which was exactly what Jack was doing now.

“You all right?” Harry asked as they walked out the double doors together, side by side but with a good metre of space between them.

Jack nodded tightly. “Just tired,” he lied, even though it wasn’t so much a lie as it was a convenient truth. “Are we heading back to the hotel now?”

Harry face creased into something resembling a pout. “I thought we could do some of the touristy shit while we have time,” he said, injecting just a bit of pleading energy into his tone, enough to make Jack feel guilty at even the thought of rejecting him. “We’re going to be pretty busy tomorrow before the event,” he added.

“Yeah,” Jack said, “all right.” He couldn’t deny his own desire to spend a day in Paris as well, so despite his reluctance at spending even more time with Harry in the city of love while depriving himself of a much-needed kip in the process, Jack couldn’t find it in himself to say no.

Harry, as the only one of the two of them to spend much time in France on prior occasions, appointed himself the de facto tour guide, and Jack was perfectly fine with that. He followed Harry around like a baby duckling as they walked through the city streets, attracting far less attention than Jack would have expected given the fan encounter they’d already had on the plane.

But everyone they passed seemed just as engrossed in taking in the sights as they were, so maybe that was the difference. The more tourists about, the easier it became to blend. Jack wondered if Harry would virtually disappear in a place like Las Vegas, following that logic. And then he started to embark on some fantasy trip _with_ Harry in Las Vegas, and that was just too much for him to handle.

He needed to focus. On not tripping over cracks in the pavement and whatnot.

They’d only been walking about fifteen minutes before Harry suddenly whirled on Jack with his phone in hand. “Will you take some photos?” Harry asked. “I want to show them to my mum later.”

“Of you?” Jack replied dumbly.

Harry nodded. “Yeah, of course.”

That’s how Jack ended up playing amateur photographer while Harry gallivanted around Paris, though after they’d traded phones (Harry insisted on it) Jack caught Harry sneakily trying to take a few pictures of him as well whenever they stopped to admire something in particular.

They didn’t linger too long in any one place, however; Harry marched ahead of Jack with purpose, and barely glanced down at the map he’d pulled up on Jack’s phone as they traversed the city on foot, somehow managing to hit every major tourist attraction within ten kilometres of their hotel.

Jack wasn’t the least bit surprised when they ended their tour on the Trocadero, the Eiffel Tower silhouetted in all its glory against the horizon while the sun setting to their right reflected a hazy orange glow onto the billowing clouds behind the massive structure.

Jack, now that he was seeing it up close, sort of found the thing a bit ugly, but he certainly wasn’t about to voice that opinion out loud. Especially not after glancing over at Harry to find him staring in wide-eyed wonder at Paris’s number one tourist attraction.

“You look like you’ve never seen it before,” Jack observed as he waited for Harry to say something—anything.

“Not up close,” Harry replied as he shook his head. “Never had much time for sight-seeing,” he added vaguely.

There was a bitterness in his voice that made Jack reluctant to ask for more information. Instead, he turned to look back at the tower with his hands stuffed in his pockets, waiting for Harry to get whatever it was that he wanted out of this experience so they could finally head back to the hotel and sleep.

As the sky grew darker, more and more people started to gather on the plaza, crowding up the space to the point where Jack was a little worried about their ability to make an exit without being noticed. Harry didn’t seem to share his concerns, or maybe he was just better at hiding it. He seemed blissfully content to watch the dormant tower, dark and unchanging, silhouetted against the early evening sky.

Then, as Jack turned again to look at the tower itself instead of Harry, he spotted a warm glow slowly spreading from the bottom to the very top, illuminating the entire structure until it was finally recognisable as the eye-catching wonder of the world he’d glimpsed in so many photographs over the course of his life. Suddenly, he understood why so many people had flocked to this place just to stare in awe at the lights as they lit up the tower from within.

“We should take a photo,” Harry suddenly blurted out as the two of them stared at the light display that now dominated the night sky.

“Isn’t that all we’ve been doing?” Jack pointed out.

Harry glanced over at him with a strange expression on his face. “No, I meant like, us, together,” he clarified.

Jack’s mouth dropped open in realisation. “So what,” he replied, “we ask some tourist to snap a photo of us stood awkwardly in front of the bloody thing?”

Harry rolled his eyes. “No,” he said again. “You’re going to kiss me and take a selfie with the lights in the background. It’ll be romantic.”

Jack blinked at Harry in confusion. “You want to show a picture of us kissing to your mum?” he questioned.

“_No_,” Harry told him for the third time. “Will you just trust me and take the fucking photo?”

Jack sighed and nodded before digging Harry’s phone out of his own pocket. “How am I meant to do this?” he asked as he struggled to bring up the camera app for the twelfth time that afternoon.

“What do you mean?”

Jack turned the full force of his annoyance on Harry. “You’re the one who wants me to take the bleeding picture,” he said, his voice rising in volume enough that heads around them started to turn, “so how do you want to do it?”

“Oh.” Even in the darkness, Jack could make out the flush flooding Harry’s cheeks like a beacon shining through the night. “I thought we’d make it look like you took it without me knowing, yeah? Like a candid.”

Jack wasn’t really confident in his photographic abilities in broad daylight when his face wasn’t otherwise occupied, but at this point, what Harry wanted, Harry got. Jack wasn’t about to shoot the idea down in its conception phase, even if the execution turned out horrible. And if the end result was awful, well, then that was something to hold over Harry’s head later when they inevitably had their next argument.

“Now?” Jack asked once he’d determined a good angle to hold the phone at that would get both them and the Eiffel Tower in the shot. He wasn’t sure who on earth would possibly believe it was a convincing candid with how much effort it required to make sure it was a usable photo, but that wasn’t his problem.

Harry shook his head. “Give it another minute,” he replied as he peered down at the lockscreen on Jack’s phone, which put the hour at exactly 17:59.

“What happens in a minute?” Jack wondered.

“The light show. You’ll see.”

And so Jack did, when the clock struck the hour and the Eiffel Tower suddenly blossomed with hundreds of twinkling lights that had the crowd around them gasping as they lifted their own phones into the air to take photos.

“Now?”

“Now,” Harry confirmed.

Jack angled his face toward Harry’s and lifted his phone into the air, waiting until Harry pressed clammy lips against his before clicking the button to take the photo. Jack let his mouth linger on Harry’s for a moment as he quickly tapped the shutter a few more times, desperately hoping that there would be something usable within the string of photos.

Once he was satisfied that they’d gotten whatever Harry wanted, Jack finally pulled away and handed Harry back his phone.

“I’ll send it to you,” Harry told Jack as he offered up Jack’s phone in trade.

“What for?” Jack asked, befuddled. He still wasn’t sure what the point of the whole endeavour had even been.

“So you can tweet it,” Harry replied without looking up. He tapped at his own phone for a few seconds, and then a message came through on Jack’s end with an image attachment. “Your instagram’s still private, right?”

“Yeah.”

“Not my first choice, but twitter it is, I suppose,” Harry told him. “It’ll generate a good social media buzz before the event tomorrow.”

“Wouldn’t it be better if you tweeted it?” Jack asked.

Harry shook his head, looking like he was trying to explain simple arithmetic to a child as he explained. “You’re gonna tweet it. I’m just gonna like it.”

“How is that going to help?”

Harry’s lips pursed into a taut line across his face as he stared at Jack. “Just do it?” he replied. “Please?”

Jack nodded and glanced down at his phone to do as Harry had asked. He didn’t often post to his Twitter, and even more rarely were his tweets in any way personal and not career-related, but he’d done a lot of things that were out of character for him since this whole thing had begun, so what was one more, really?

Almost as soon as the image uploaded to Jack’s timeline, complete with a night sky emoji caption, he got a notification that Harry’s account had liked it. And then a second later, Harry’s actual hand reached toward him and snatched his phone right back out of his hand again.

“Hey,” Jack protested automatically, but before he could gather his wits about him to ask what Harry was doing, his phone was back in his hands again. It took only a second to figure out that Harry had muted all of his push notifications and put his phone on silent. “What’s that for?” he asked suspiciously.

“Just making sure you enjoy the rest of the night,” Harry replied without further explanation.

Jack decided to accept things for what they were and tucked his phone back into his pocket without turning his notifications back on. “Should we actually go do a proper tour and that?” he asked Harry, gesturing toward the Eiffel Tower, which had stopped twinkling and returned to its former state of low-level illumination.

Harry stared almost longingly out into the dark but eventually just shook his head before turning back toward Jack. “Be a bit harder to stay incognito, I reckon,” he explained.

On the one hand, Jack was grateful that he didn’t have to stay out much longer doing the full tourist experience with Harry, but on the other…he’d sort of been enjoying himself at the end.

After a brief discussion of how to proceed, they both decided to linger just a little longer to watch the lights as the sky went fully dark. Afterwards, they headed back to the hotel, but took the long way back, passing by just a few more sights and then a bakery on their route.

They popped inside, eager to suck up some of the warmth emanating from the tiny little shop and bought a few authentic French delicacies to share on the remainder of their walk back. If Jack had been worried earlier about their lunch feeling like a real date, he was in no way prepared for this, and ended up having to shelve his concerns to potentially obsess about later, when Harry was no longer within hand-holding distance.

For his part, Harry seemed like he was on cloud nine the whole way back, and frankly, Jack wasn’t sure what to make of it. Sure, they’d gotten their fill of sightseeing, but he wasn’t sure that could really account for the severe uptick in Harry’s mood since they left the Trocadero.

Jack was completely wiped out when they finally made it back to their hotel room: both from the travel and the walking—not to mention the fact that the only real meal he’d had was at lunch, which by the time they got back had been several hours prior.

Harry decided to have Gavin pick up food for them, and they ate on opposite sides of the bed in silence while a French drama played on the telly without subtitles. Jack stared intently at the screen despite barely speaking a word of French and processing almost none of what was being said anyway.

Finally, Harry shifted off the bed to take his plastic carton over to the bin, but he stopped short and extended his hand to take Jack’s as well. Jack handed it over and watched as Harry skipped over to the far corner of the room before carefully cramming their rubbish into the too-small bin, but he quickly averted his eyes just before Harry turned around again and focused his attention back on the telly.

“Think we better turn in,” Harry announced as he padded back over to his side of the bed. “You want the first shower? I don’t mind.”

Jack considered it for a second before shaking his head. “Too tired,” he decided. “I’ll just have a shower in the morning.”

Harry shrugged. “Suit yourself.” He walked away again to grab something from his suitcase, rifling through it for a moment while Jack continued to pretend to watch the telly before eventually procuring some sort of large toiletry bag that he tucked securely under his arm before disappearing into the bathroom.

Jack really was exhausted, so now that Harry was no longer in the actual room with him, he turned off the lights and the television and quickly crawled under the covers, turning his head toward the bathroom door as he made himself comfortable.

It wasn’t until now that he realised the out-of-place frosted glass panel on the wall next to the bathroom door actually served some sort of purpose. With the light inside the bathroom on, Jack could almost see through the glass, albeit without being able to make out any real details of what was inside.

When he caught a glimpse of Harry’s silhouette leaning past the glass to turn on the faucet inside the shower cubicle, Jack nearly had a heart attack.

The smart, decent thing to do would have been to turn over and go right the fuck to sleep. Jack didn’t do the smart or decent thing.

Instead, he kept watching as Harry finally climbed fully inside the cubicle, the silhouette of his long, lanky body fully visible behind the frosted glass. Jack still couldn’t make out all that much, and that was the justification he gave himself as permission to keep looking.

It wasn’t like Harry was doing anything particularly interesting—but for whatever reason, Jack couldn’t seem to make himself tear his eyes away from the foggy silhouette as Harry methodically washed his hair before moving on to his body, starting with the armpits before working his way down to his feet—which he scrubbed thoroughly, Jack was surprised to note.

After, Harry leaned out of the shower, leaving only his lower half visible, and Jack assumed he was getting ready to get out, but he didn’t turn off the water, and when the rest of him appeared against the glass again, there was something clutched in his right hand.

Jack was more curious than guilty now and watched in bewilderment as Harry made several unfamiliar gestures before bracing himself against the shower wall with his left hand, putting him in profile through the frosted glass.

Still, it wasn’t until Harry actually bent over and made a very unmistakable motion with the object in his other hand that Jack realised he was actually _fucking_ himself with it.

All right, so it was a dildo. Harry Styles apparently kept a dildo inside his toiletry bag. That was information Jack could have gone his entire life without knowing. And yet—despite how easy it would have been for him to just turn over in bed and stare out the window instead—Jack kept watching.

It was less of a surprise than it should have been when Jack started to get hard just from the suggestion of Harry’s body as he fucked himself in the shower, and by then, he figured he’d already reached the point of no return and there was no point in averting his eyes now.

Jack told himself as he snaked a hand into his own boxers to squeeze the base of his cock that it would be worse to still have a hard-on when Harry got out and climbed into bed with him. The rationalising worked to some degree, but there was still a tinge of guilt that plagued Jack as he jerked off in time with Harry’s frantic thrusts.

It was easy to tell when Harry came: he nearly bent over double, his hair hanging limply over his face as stood there, his whole body shaking violently enough for even Jack to make out through the glass.

Throughout it all, Jack hadn’t seen Harry touch his dick once, and he was still marvelling over that when he came into his own hand barely a minute later, which suddenly left him dealing with the dilemma of how to clean up so Harry wouldn’t notice anything was amiss when he got out.

Jack was in the middle of cleaning his hand and stomach off with his t-shirt when Harry straightened up and the dildo he was holding suddenly slipped out of his hand. Only it wasn’t a dildo, Jack realised as it clattered to the floor with a low, rumbling sound that turned into an angry grinding noise as it rolled around on the tiles. A vibrator, then. Harry was just full of surprises. And apparently, sex toys.

Jack quickly finished his clean-up job as Harry scrambled to pick up the vibrator and then tossed his dirty shirt into the corner of the room near his suitcase in a panic as the water abruptly turned off. He shut his eyes as soon as Harry’s silhouette disappeared from behind the glass, but it was another few minutes before Jack heard the bathroom door finally open.

He could see the light shining through his eyelids, and he got the impression that Harry was stood there in the doorway, trying to ascertain if Jack was asleep or not and whether he’d overhead Harry’s shower mishap.

Jack continued pretending to be asleep, content to let Harry live in a world where no one knew that he was apparently ballsy enough to bring a fucking vibrator on an international flight, and even more ballsy for using it while sharing a room with a bloke who wasn’t even interested in other blokes.

Jack chose to ignore the part of his brain that so helpfully pointed out that it wasn’t exactly the most heterosexual thing in the world to wank off to Harry Styles fucking himself with a vibrator. It was just the suggestion of the sexual act itself, he decided. It was like wanking off to a softcore scene in a romantic movie or something, or like, getting hard from seeing a diagram of a woman’s breast in a science textbook. It didn’t actually mean anything.

While Jack was having his internal debate, Harry suddenly closed the shower door again. But he didn’t get into bed. Instead, Jack heard the sink turn on from within the bathroom, and when he opened his eyes to confirm, Harry was indeed nowhere to be seen, and the only evidence of his presence was the tiny strip of light from under the bathroom door.

Jack was dead to the world before Harry ever came back out again.


	15. Chapter 15

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Twitter: @vondrostes & @vondrostesupd8s  
Tumblr: @vondrostes

When Jack woke up the next morning, it was still dark in their shared hotel room. He rolled over onto his back, trying to figure out what exactly had roused him, but he whatever he was expecting, it wasn’t Harry stood in front of the window in just a pair of very short athletic shorts, pulling a hoodie down over his head before heading toward the door.

“What are you doing?” Jack asked in a voice still thick with sleep.

Harry paused and turned to glance at him with his hand perched delicately on the doorknob. “Was planning to go for a bit of a jog,” he said quietly. “I didn’t mean to wake you.”

Jack made an attempt to clear his throat of the claggy build-up that had accumulated throughout the night as he sat up in bed, rubbing at his eyes. “If you want to wait a few minutes,” he said through a yawn, “I can come along.”

There was just enough pre-dawn illumination coming in through the gap in the curtains that Jack could just make out the expression of surprise that quickly flitted across Harry’s face. “You don’t have to come with me,” Harry said, sounding almost a bit reluctant about the offer. “I was just going to have Gavin tag along.”

“Well, now you don’t have to wake him up, too,” Jack said firmly as he hefted his legs out of bed and stood up, stretching a little to try and liven himself up in preparation for the bout of exercise.

“All right, then,” Harry finally agreed, his eyes tracking Jack’s every movement as he crossed the room to get into his suitcase so he could change into more suitable attire. “As long as you can keep up.”

“I’m sure it won’t be a problem,” Jack replied confidently. He indulged in a healthy amount of hiking back home in Scotland. He was fairly certain a bit of cardio along flat city streets wasn’t going to pose much of a challenge.

Harry stared at Jack for just a moment longer before turning away to wait as he finished changing so they could leave.

It was unseasonably warm outside when they exited the hotel grounds, especially for so early in the morning when the sun had only just begun to brighten the horizon. Jack had dressed for colder temperatures based on the chill of yesterday’s outdoor excursion, but apparently Harry must have checked the weather conditions before getting dressed in his shorts, which clung tightly to his legs as he led the way down the stairs and onto the pavement below.

Neither of them exchanged a word as they jogged down several city blocks before making a left turn, continuing along a large route in a perfect square until more than an hour had passed before they arrived back at their hotel again. Jack was sweating buckets by the time they made it to their room; Harry wasn’t faring much better even with the shorts.

Jack secretly thought that Harry might have been pushing them both a lot harder than he would have otherwise if Jack hadn’t insisted on coming with him, just out of spite, but there was no way to know for sure.

What he did know is that they were both red-faced, damp, and sorely in need of a nice, hot shower to soothe their aching muscles. Unfortunately, there was the problem of there being only one shower inside their hotel room.

Harry stared into the open doorway to the bathroom dubiously as Jack perched himself on the edge of the bed in an effort to catch his breath.

“Suppose you’ll be wanting the first shower, then,” Harry said as he turned to look over his shoulder at Jack. “Since I had one last night.”

Jack shrugged. “It’s big enough for the both of us, innit?” he replied, surprising both himself and Harry with his words. He’d been thinking it, sure, but he hadn’t quite decided whether it was something he should say or not when the sentence unexpectedly tumbled out of his mouth in response to Harry’s acknowledgement of their dilemma.

“You want us to shower together?” Harry asked in a flat tone.

Jack shrugged again, this time feeling a bit itchy all over as he tried to avoid meeting Harry’s eyes. “It’s a bit like a steam room,” he tried to rationalise. It wasn’t at all like that—not even close, and to boot, Jack had never set foot in a public bath or sauna in his life. The last time he’d even been naked around another man had been back in uni, during theatre when they’d all had to cram into a tiny dressing room, facing apart, with everyone awkwardly looking anywhere but at each other’s bits—Jack was already dreading reliving that experience now, but in closer quarters and with Harry Styles of all people.

Then again, hadn’t they already done worse?

“I suppose you’re right,” Harry finally replied, which surprised Jack even more. He’d expected him to beg off, not call Jack’s bluff.

But now Jack had no choice but to make good on his offer, which left him to discard his sweat-drenched clothing on the floor to be picked up and shoved into a laundry bag later before getting into the shower as quickly as possible so he didn’t have to risk seeing Harry do the same. He turned with his front to one wall, the overhead shower faucet streaming water down throughout every square centimetre of the cubicle, which at least meant he and Harry wouldn’t have to argue over who got to stand in the spray.

Jack was aware of Harry getting in behind him and closing the door, but he didn’t turn or in any other way acknowledge Harry’s presence as he went about his business washing himself down with a pine-scented shower scrub the hotel had so kindly provided for them. Once he set the bottle down, however, he spotted Harry’s hand out of the corner of his eye shooting out to grab it immediately.

Jack rinsed off, and then reached down again to retrieve the shampoo only to find that Harry hadn’t replaced it on the shelf embedded in the centre of the shower wall. He stared at the space where it should have been for a long moment before turning slowly to face Harry, who was in the middle of rubbing shower scrub onto every bit of his body and seemed oblivious to Jack’s dilemma.

The shampoo bottle was sat on the floor, a few centimetres away from Harry’s naked foot. And the naked rest of him, as well.

Now that Jack was looking, he couldn’t seem to force himself to _stop_.

Jack wasn’t sure if it was by chance or if Harry just had some superhuman sense that allowed him to feel almost instantly when someone was staring at him, but barely thirty seconds passed before Harry was turning around, his eyes clear and luminous even through the billowing haze of mist and steam. He stared back, and the two of them were left gazing at each other from opposites sides of the shower cubicle, still naked and no more than a metre apart.

Jack wasn’t certain afterward just which one of them had moved first—their mouths clashing wetly as the water streaked down their faces, making Jack feel like he was drowning in it, in Harry—but it was undeniable that Harry had been the first one to pull away, his chest heaving as he stumbled backwards and nearly slipped on the tile in his haste to press himself against the back wall.

Jack wasn’t sure what to say. ‘Sorry’? ‘I didn’t mean it’? He couldn’t say with confidence that either of those things were true. So he said nothing at all, just continuing to gape at Harry’s open mouth as he panted hard, and then breaking the silence no longer mattered anymore. Harry turned away abruptly and stumbled out of the cubicle, flashing his surprisingly round arse on his otherwise rail-thin frame as he leaned down to grab a fresh towel from the wall opposite.

It took Jack a minute or two to register that Harry had left the door hanging open on its hinges and that he needed to close it. He did so hastily, with a bang, wincing as the noise echoed loudly within the confined space and beyond.

Jack then turned and quickly scooped up the shampoo bottle and squeezed out a dollop onto his hand. He spun away again, only too aware of the fact that his body was still mostly visible to Harry out in the main room if he happened to look over at the frosted glass.

That didn’t stop Jack from covertly rubbing one out once he’d decided enough time had passed that he could get away with it, though.

When he emerged from the bathroom with a towel wrapped securely around his waist, Harry was curled up on his side of the bed with his knees drawn up and book propped up against them. He didn’t turn to look at Jack as he entered, nor did he give any outward signs of having caught on to what had taken Jack so long in the shower.

“So,” Jack said, clearing his throat a little as he sat down on the other side of the bed without bothering to make himself decent first. “What exactly do we have planned for today?”

Harry glanced up from his book, his eyes flitting to Jack’s exposed chest for a moment before meeting his inquisitive gaze instead. Harry let out a quiet sigh and closed the book. “We both have fittings in a few hours,” he replied. “Then there’s an interview block—we’re supposed to use a room on the ground floor for that, so you’re welcome to sit in if you want, but it’s no trouble to come back upstairs and wait here if you’d rather sleep or something.”

It was clear from the tone of Harry’s voice that he fully expected Jack to take the out. So Jack decided to do the opposite.

“I don’t mind watching the interviews,” Jack said.

Harry raised an eyebrow. “And you don’t mind if I mention you in some capacity during the interviews?” he asked.

Jack kept his gaze fixed on Harry’s face and focused very hard on not letting his expression shift any which way as he stared at him, unblinking. “That was part of the agreement,” he replied, “wasn’t it?”

There was a minute change in Harry’s face, the slightest tinge of disappointment visible for only a second before he turned away again.

“So we’re starting with the fittings?” Jack double-checked.

“No,” Harry replied as he got up and slotted his book back into his bag. “We’re starting with breakfast.”

Harry ended up waiting dutifully by the door for Jack to get dressed before they went and got Gavin from his room. They didn’t eat inside the hotel, but instead took the car across town to a restaurant that felt slightly less intimidating to Jack after being repeatedly desensitised to the experience of dining with Harry in various trappings of luxury.

After the three of them had filled up on everything a French breakfast had to offer, they made the long drive to a tailor in a completely different section of the city, because apparently Harry couldn’t be fussed to choose somewhere to eat that was relatively close to their actual destination.

Jack intended to hold his tongue at first, but then let the complaint slip just as he was climbing out of the car behind Harry, who turned to level him with a dirty look as they walked up to the shopfront together.

“It’s a lovely restaurant,” Harry said in defence, as though that were an adequate reason to have Gavin drive a good hour out of the way just so Harry could dine on the establishment’s signature caviar omelette while sipping a mimosa that cost more than Jack had ever paid for a single drink in his life.

But those were the pros of international stardom and all the riches that came with it, evidently.

Jack found himself musing about his own future as he sat next to Harry in the waiting area before being called back for their fitting appointment, his mind focused on the possibility of someday becoming no different than Harry.

He supposed there was the possibility that their ages were a factor, that Harry had become accustomed to his money far earlier in life than Jack could have ever hoped, and that it had altered the course of his tastes as an adult with a functionally infinite amount of resources available to him—but another part of Jack suspected that all rich people sort of became the same person, that it was more like being part of an exclusive club with its own sort of peer pressure and conformity as a result. Unless one was a hermit living in a castle in the middle of a private island somewhere, he decided.

“Penny for your thoughts?” Harry suddenly asked, putting an end to Jack’s internal ramblings.

“Oh, erm. Just thinking about tonight.” The lie sounded painfully obvious to Jack once it was out of his mouth, but Harry didn’t call him on it.

Harry nodded, pursing his lips. “You won’t have to do much,” he replied, as though hoping to reassure Jack—who really didn’t need it, in all honesty. He’d bullshitted his way through plenty of boring industry events, and he didn’t see how a charity dinner was going to be any different. “I’ll introduce you to a few people and then I’ll need to make a speech at some point. We’ll pose for photos on the red carpet, I suppose.”

Suddenly, something very important occurred to Jack. “I never asked you what the dinner is even for,” he realised.

A crease formed between Harry’s eyebrows. “Pam didn’t tell you? It’s to raise funds for a new LGBT-friendly safe sex programme hosted online, so kids who aren’t out to their parents or who don’t attend a more progressive school can get the education they need.”

“Ah.” Jack wasn’t sure what to think about the prospect of his name being attached to that sort of event in headlines, but he supposed it probably didn’t matter given the fact that their attendance was likely to be overshadowed by the revelation that he and Harry were officially ‘dating’.

Jack turned away again and returned to thinking about the future. It was all for the sake of his career, he reminded himself. Everything in the world came down to having connections and a recognisable name, and before Harry he’d had neither.

God, he desperately needed a smoke.

Harry was the first to be called back for his fitting, and he gave Jack a little wave as he left, like they were schoolkids or something. Jack waved back anyway and then resumed his fruitless daydreaming for a few minutes, before coming to the startling realisation that he hadn’t ever turned his notifications on his phone back on after Harry had turned them off the night before.

Jack pulled his phone out of his pocket and opened Twitter, not really sure what to expect. Whatever it was he had been anticipating, the reality was far more shocking. His mouth dropped open as he opened his notifications to find hundreds—no thousands—of interactions, from accounts that all seemed to bear variations of Harry’s name in their display names and usernames, and a myriad of profile pictures with Harry’s face.

It was far more than the glimpse of what went on in Harry’s corner of the internet when he’d Instagram-stalked him after their first proper date—back when no one commenting on Harry’s photo had any idea who Jack was or what his connection to Harry was supposed to be.

They knew now.

“Do you have any fags on you?” Jack asked Gavin, breathlessly turning to the other man in the hope that he could get a quick nicotine fix before he had to face Harry again.

Gavin shook his head and crossed his big, burly arms over his chest. “Harry doesn’t like anyone on his team to smoke,” he replied.

Jack nodded slowly and turned to face the door again, behind which Harry was likely in some state of undress as he was fitted for the event. Suddenly, he didn’t know how he was meant to get through the rest of the night. “Excuse me a moment,” he said as he darted up out of his seat before fleeing outside to stand next to the car, the air inside the shop itself suddenly feeling almost too heavy to breathe—claustrophobic.

Jack wasn’t sure why his reaction was so extreme. Almost no one responding or reacting to the photo he’d posted was doing so negatively. Well, that wasn’t strictly true, but Jack wasn’t overly offended by all the fans who seemed heartbroken that Harry wasn’t with one of the other members of his previous band that they apparently ‘shipped’ him with. Whatever that meant.

More overwhelming for some reason were all the responses that didn’t have a damn thing to do with Harry, the endless flood of girls in his mentions either begging Jack for sexual favours or promising him those favours themselves. It was the sort of attention Jack had always told himself he’d wanted, but now that he’d gotten a taste of it—

“Jack?”

Jack whirled around to find Harry half-leaning out the door with a confused expression pasted across his face. “Sorry,” he replied automatically, without even really being sure what he was meant to be apologising for.

Harry’s frown deepened. “It’s your turn to be fitted,” Harry told him.

Jack nodded and hastily shoved his phone into his pocket before following Harry back inside. He headed straight for the door, expecting Harry to sit back down again in the seats they’d occupied previously, but Harry kept going as well, pushing the door open for Jack to go through before slipping inside behind him.

Jack stopped short and glanced back at him in confusion. “I thought you were finished,” he said, bewildered by Harry’s presence.

“I am,” Harry replied without explaining further why he’d chosen to accompany Jack to his fitting.

Jack glanced away from Harry to find the tailor stood there in the middle of the room, waiting for them to finish up so he could commence with the fitting, and decided to leave it at that. Besides, it wasn’t like Harry was getting a glimpse of anything he hadn’t already seen before.

“It’s a pink tie event,” Harry explained as Jack took his place in the centre of the room after stripping down to his pants.

Jack allowed the tailor to manipulate him into place and then did his best to hold still as he was measured. “What in god’s name is a pink tie event?” he demanded.

Harry shrugged. “Whatever they want it to be, I suppose,” he replied unhelpfully. “I decided to take it literally.”

It wasn’t too much longer before Jack was being helped into a pinkish-grey suit with a cream waistcoat and a baby pink silk tie to match. He stared down at himself with a frown and then glanced back up at Harry, his expression unchanged.

“I look ridiculous,” Jack pronounced.

Harry shook his head emphatically after looking Jack up and down. “I think you look very handsome,” he replied, his hands folded over his knee primly as he evaluated Jack from some distance away. “I would have let you pick something yourself, but I wanted us to be coordinated for this particular event.”

He phrased it like there were future events he anticipated the two of them attending, but Jack chose to ignore that particular detail as he formulated his response. “We aren’t wearing matching suits, are we?” he asked, a bit exasperated at the prospect of walking into a formal event wearing the exact same outfit as his date. They’d be laughingstocks.

Harry shook his head with a tiny smirk. “You’ll see,” was all he had to say in reply.


	16. Chapter 16

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Twitter: @vondrostes & @vondrostesupd8s  
Tumblr: @vondrostes

After Jack’s fitting, during which he was jabbed by the pointed end of a sewing pin no less than three times despite the tailor’s feigned innocence in the aftermath of each poke, they headed straight back to the hotel for Harry’s scheduled interviews.

Jack was a little nervous about the prospect, if he was being perfectly honest with himself.

Mostly, he was nervous because he wasn’t sure what to expect. Any press he’d done for his previous films had been fairly lowkey: short red-carpet interviews and group Q&As with his fellow cast members. Certainly nothing close to the calibre of what Harry must have been accustomed to as a household name in the music industry. And it wasn’t as though Jack was expecting to be in front of the cameras while Harry was interviewing, but still—he was worried about what could potentially go wrong all the same.

Harry seemed to clue into Jack’s nerves just as they approached the hotel again. He reached across the backseat—where he’d chosen to sit with Jack instead of up front with Gavin (for security reasons, he’d claimed)—and laid his hand over Jack’s, giving his fingers a reassuring squeeze before pulling away again.

It helped, a bit.

Once they were back inside the hotel, Jack followed Harry back up to their room with Gavin in tow to retrieve a small plastic garment bag from his things before they went straight back down the lift again to the third floor, where they got out and walked down another long corridor to a much larger suite than the one they were staying in upstairs.

The door had been left open for them, and inside Jack could make out a good half-dozen people scurrying around, getting everything ready for the upcoming interviews. He stuck close to Harry as they entered, and the two of them walked straight past the main crew and into the spacious bathroom instead, where there was a young woman sat on the bathroom counter, putting the finishing touches on her own makeup before whirling around and spotting Harry with beaming smile.

She shrieked something unintelligible before throwing herself into Harry’s arms, and Jack just stared at the two of them, a bit bewildered by the familiarity of the interaction.

“Iris is a makeup artist I’ve worked with before,” Harry explained vaguely once the two had separated. “I don’t think we’ve seen each other in almost a year.”

“Has it really been that long?” Iris gasped as she pushed Harry down into the chair provided before starting to run her fingers through the full length of his hair. She glanced over at Jack, who was still stood near the doorway, at a loss for whether he was meant to stay there and wait or if he should occupy himself somewhere else until Harry was ready. “You can sit down right there, dear,” Iris helpfully told Jack, pointing to the lip of the jacuzzi-style tub in the corner. “We won’t be more than a few minutes.”

Jack perched delicately on the edge and noticed that the angle he was sat at afforded him a good view of both Harry’s face in profile as well as his expression in the mirror as he stared straight ahead, waiting for Iris to get to work.

“This is the new boyfriend, right?” she asked, surprising Jack a bit with how blunt she was about it. But then again, it wasn’t supposed to be a secret. The whole point was for people to know. For the whole world to know.

“Yep,” Harry replied, emphasising the pop at the end. His eyes darted to the side, toward Jack, before staring straight ahead again. “Very supportive of every aspect of my career, as you can see.”

Iris clicked her tongue good-naturedly and spritzed Harry’s curls with a clear spray bottle before running her fingers through them again. “You could do with a bit more of that sort of support in my opinion.” She looked up over at Jack, her expression suddenly serious. “You’re being good to him, I hope?”

Jack blinked at her, startled by the question as well as the abrupt shift in her tone. “What?” he replied reflexively before processing the question a few milliseconds too late. “I mean, aye, absolutely, yes.”

Iris huffed out a little laugh that Harry matched as she turned her attention back to him. “Easily flustered, eh?” she asked Harry instead of Jack.

Harry just rolled his eyes. “Be nice to him,” he admonished her. “Let me do the scolding.”

“If you say so.”

After that, Iris seemed content to work in silence as she carefully wetted, trimmed, and dried Harry’s hair before tucking it over one shoulder in a loose braid.

Jack found himself unexpectedly fascinated by the whole process, and he couldn’t help but note that once Iris had finished, Harry looked distinctly different than he had before, when his hair had been the dishevelled mop it nearly always was when they were together. With the long curls tamed and drawn to the side, a few left loose just to frame his face, it was like the sharp angles of his jaw and cheekbones had been magically eroded, giving way to soft curves instead.

“I’ll be back in a jiffy,” Iris said as she stepped away from the chair and made her way toward the door. “Forgot something in my luggage.”

Jack’s eyes didn’t follow her out. He was still transfixed by Harry’s reflection, and it wasn’t until he saw Harry’s eyes dart up again to meet his in the mirror itself that he realised just how blatantly he’d been staring.

“I’d ask if there’s something on my face,” Harry said with just a touch of amusement in his tone, “but—” He gestured widely toward his own reflection in the mirror, where it was plain to see that the only thing Jack could have been staring at was Harry himself.

Jack blushed at being caught in the act. “Sorry,” he mumbled.

Thankfully, Iris darted back inside again before Jack could do anything else to make a fool out of himself in Harry’s presence. He contemplated leaving as Iris pulled out an assortment of items that Jack had never once been subject to in all his years of having stage and camera makeup applied, but he thought it might draw more attention to the awkwardness of the situation, so he stayed put and continued watching as Iris touched up Harry’s face.

It was fascinating watching her work, and Jack’s focus only intensified with each passing second as Iris moved the various tools between her fingers slowly and carefully to accentuate Harry’s natural features with highlights and shadows that couldn’t have been seen otherwise with the naked eye.

By the time she was finished, Harry looked like a slightly more otherworldly version of himself—ethereal, Jack caught himself thinking—and when she stepped away to grab something from the other side of the counter, Jack had to force himself to look away as his breath caught in his throat.

“Here,” Jack heard Iris saying, and he looked up again to find Iris handing Harry a much smaller version of the makeup bag she’d been using before. “I’ll grab you something to drink while you finish up.”

Jack was surprised that she was leaving the rest of the job in Harry’s hands, but Harry didn’t seem remotely perturbed by her statement. Nor did he react in any way when Iris shut the bathroom door upon exiting, leaving him and Jack alone once again—but this time, with no one lurking just on the other side of the wide-open doorway who could potentially look in on them at any time.

Harry didn’t acknowledge Jack’s presence behind him as he carefully extracted a tube of lipstick from the bag Iris had provided. His slender fingers closed around the top and pulled to expose a dusty pink shade, not too far off from the natural colour of Harry’s own lips. Thus far, all of the makeup Iris had applied had been designed to make Harry look more like himself, somehow, and the lipstick seemed like it was meant to accomplish the same goal.

But once Harry smeared a bit of the colour on his lips, the shade suddenly looked much brighter under the lights, almost giving the illusion that he’d been biting at them for hours—or that someone else had. They looked unnaturally vivid without straying into clownish, and when Harry was finished, it was hard for Jack to recall what his mouth had looked like before. It was hard to recall much of anything, actually, now that his eyes were trained on Harry’s lips. Jack’s head suddenly felt like it was all filled up with static.

Only Harry’s bright green eyes cut through the haze as he glanced up to meet Jack’s gaze again, but this time he said nothing before looking down to place the lipstick back inside the bag Iris had provided him.

Once everything was back in its proper place, Harry stood up from the makeup chair he’d been sat in for the better part of half an hour and wordlessly began to unbutton his shirt while Jack watched.

Jack swallowed hard, but he made no attempt to look away as Harry shrugged off the bright blue Hawaiian shirt, revealing pale skin and dark tattoos underneath. It was nothing new to Jack, who had seen it all in the shower that morning, but seeing Harry in any state of undress felt like the same punch to the gut that he’d experienced the very first time, and there seemed to be no indication that Jack was becoming desensitised to the sight in any way.

Harry ducked down to retrieve the garment bag he’d brought with him. For a moment, it only made things worse, as Jack was forced to confront the sight of Harry’s muscles shifting under his skin, where there was no ink to obscure them. Even worse were the dimples at the base of his spine, the perfect size for someone’s thumbs to fit into while they—

“Would you help me with this?” Harry asked abruptly as he stood back up again, the words cutting through the jumbled mess of Jack’s errant thoughts with unexpected force.

Jack nodded dumbly, but it took him another second or two to process the question. “Right,” he said as he finally stood up. “Yeah, of course.”

Jack felt like he was stumbling in low gravity as he walked the few paces over to where Harry was stood with his arms extended, holding out an airy piece of fabric in a deep indigo colour. It was only after Jack had taken it between his fingers that he realised it was a sheer, ruffled blouse, thin enough that it was almost guaranteed that Harry’s tattoos would be visible once he’d put it on.

“How should I…?” Jack questioned, feeling a bit helpless as he examined the article of clothing to find that it was mostly open at the back, where a line of buttons went down about midway, meaning it would have to be carefully pulled over Harry’s head. “Wouldn’t it have been easier to do this part before everything else?” he pointed out.

Harry shot Jack an irritated look. “Even with a bib, I’d have probably ended up with pieces of hair stuck in it,” he replied. “And it should just go over my head, so can you—”

Jack held it open as Harry had instructed with his hands, creating a large enough gap for Harry to slip through without disturbing his hair or makeup.

“See?” Harry said as he stepped away to slide his arms into each sleeve before pulling the top up with a tiny grimace. “Can you button me up as well?”

Jack nodded, but his fingers were trembling as he reached up to push the first button through its hole, with Harry bent over just slightly to make it a bit easier on him. He was close enough now to make out the occasional spot on Harry’s skin, as well as the faded scars from previous outbreaks, but rather than finding it repulsive or otherwise off-putting, Jack merely felt endeared by the sight. Harry was just as human as the rest of them, after all.

As Jack made his way up the back of the blouse, he had to brush away a few stray curls from Harry’s neck. His fingers grew bolder the more he let himself touch Harry’s skin without repercussion, and by the time he got to the last button, he found himself purposefully dragging the backs of his knuckles against the baby-fine hairs at the nape of Harry’s neck, making him shiver a bit at the gentle touch.

Then there was a loud, fluttering knock at the door, and Jack jumped away from Harry just as Iris re-entered the bathroom with a glass in hand, filled to the brim with ice and topped off with a straw. She handed the glass to Harry, who accepted it gratefully and started to sip his drink while Jack looked on in mild disgust.

“They’re just about ready for you,” Iris informed Harry. He nodded in acknowledgment before following her out to the little set that had been built in the sitting room.

Jack trailed after Harry uncertainly. He still wasn’t sure what his place was meant to be during all this.

Iris seemed to catch on to his aimlessness quickly, however. She gestured toward a few isolated table chairs just to the side of the small set. “You can sit here while you watch,” she told Jack, who immediately plopped down into one of the chairs without any further encouragement.

Jack just managed to catch Harry’s eye again as he was led directly into the centre of all the lights and cameras before being pushed down into a much plusher-looking armchair than the spindly piece of wood Jack was currently sat on. Harry didn’t look any more comfortable for it, though; he was sat with his fingers curled into the armrests, his spine ramrod-straight, mouth drawn into a tight line across his face as Iris went over him again and made sure there wasn’t a hair out of place before she moved out of the way so the first interviewer could come in.

Jack’s heartbeat only ratcheted up as the cameras began rolling and the interviewer—a young man dressed in a smart suit—leaned across the set to shake Harry’s hand.

He was French, which wasn’t surprising, but his accent was thick enough that Jack could barely make out the questions. Harry didn’t seem to have any trouble understanding him, though, and as the interview went on with very little in the way of more adventurous inquiries, Harry started to visibly relax. Even the questions about the charity event itself remained relatively tame: where and when did Harry first hear about the organisation, what drove him to participate in philanthropy, how could his fans get involved in aiding similar causes, et cetera.

It wasn’t until the third interviewer came in that Harry’s sexuality—and consequently Jack—came up at all.

“I see you have a familiar face just off camera,” the woman said to Harry with a smile on her face. She was American, which Jack thought was strange, but he supposed the event must have pulled in a few international outlets despite its relatively small footprint. “Am I allowed to ask about him?”

Harry hesitated for a moment, his eyes connecting with Jack’s from across the set for just a millisecond before looking back at the interviewer. “Depends on what you want to ask,” he replied in a soft voice.

“Nothing crazy,” the interviewer reassured him. “But I’ve seen the headlines just like anyone else. Would you say that you two are official? Is Harry Styles finally off the market?”

Harry pressed his lips together and sucked in a deep breath through his nose before replying. “You’ll be out on the red-carpet at the event, right?” he said instead of answering the question.

The interviewer nodded.

Harry exhaled slowly. “Ask me again tonight,” he told her.

The woman seemed delighted by the prospect of getting a straightforward answer about Harry’s relationship, and from there it wasn’t hard to steer her into safer waters.

Jack was confused by Harry’s deflection, though, and even more confused when over the course of the interview block, his name didn’t come up a single time. What was the point, then? Hadn’t the whole idea behind the press for the event been to publicise their relationship so that Harry could come out without actually having to ‘come out’?

He filed those questions away for later, but when the interview segment finally came to a close and Harry was left alone in his armchair while the rest of the crew broke everything down around him, Jack couldn’t seem to muster up the courage to ask him outright.

Instead, Jack slowly made his way over to the empty chair the various interviewers had used throughout the past hour and a half and sat down in it, cringing a little at how warm the seat was through his trousers. He glanced over at Harry, who didn’t look up at him as he sat down, and waited for the silence to break.

But Harry seemed determined to not be the one to break it. He stared dully at the carpet under his feet, his expression shuttered and indecipherable.

Jack quietly drew in a breath and finally decided to open his mouth first instead. “So what now?” he asked. He felt exhausted even though there was no reason for it; he hadn’t been the one sitting in front of the cameras for ninety minutes straight. “Do we just wait around until it’s time to get ready for the charity thing?” If that were the case, Jack was keen on getting into the pool, with or without Harry.

But Harry remained still for another moment longer, and then shook his head emphatically. “Now,” he said slowly, “we have to go back and get your ring.”


	17. Chapter 17

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Twitter: @vondrostes & @vondrostesupd8s  
Tumblr: @vondrostes

Jack wasn’t sure what to say in the car as they made the short drive to the jewellery shop they’d visited the day prior, so he opted for saying absolutely nothing at all. Harry did the same.

They left the security guard, Gavin, outside in the car when they arrived. Harry was the first out of the backseat, and he proceeded into the shop itself without pausing to wait for Jack, who had to jog a bit just to catch up with him.

Inside, it was slightly more crowded than it had been upon their first visit, and Jack found Harry waiting in a corner for the harried shopkeeper to become available. Jack joined him, and the two of them stood side by side, still totally silent even though they were both clearly hyperaware of each other’s presence.

Jack still wasn’t sure where they stood after the tone Harry’s interviews had set. He hadn’t made up his mind just yet on what Harry’s reticence regarding Jack himself could possibly mean, and there obviously wasn’t any way to be certain about it without actually asking Harry why he’d dodged the American interviewer’s question instead of sticking to the plan—and asking Harry directly was by far the last thing Jack wanted to do.

Eventually the small group crowded around the front counter dispersed, leaving the shopkeeper unattended for the first time since they’d come in. Harry leapt at the opportunity and sprang forward, nearly sprinting the short distance from the front wall to the counter in the centre of the shop.

“Hi, I’m Harry; we were here yesterday?” he was saying as Jack walked up behind him at a much more sedate pace.

The man behind the counter nodded. “You two would be hard to forget,” he said in heavily accented English before moving to the side to grab a bag from under the counter itself. He glanced inside once before carrying it over to Harry, who also immediately looked inside to check whether the bag contained the items they’d purchased yesterday.

“The smaller one is the ring?” Harry asked with a pointed glance toward the shopkeeper, who nodded. Harry’s face broke out into a broad smile. “Great,” he said through a whooshing breath. “You have a beautiful collection, by the way. I’ll have to stop by again the next time I’m in Paris.”

“Long hair and tattoos,” the shopkeeper remarked as he tapped the side of his head. “I’ve got you right up here. And your handsome friend as well.”

Jack went a bit pink at being so blatantly complimented on his looks, but thankfully, Harry decided it was time to leave after that and they made their exit without any further conversation. Jack eyed up the bag clutched securely in Harry’s hands, wondering what exactly was inside, as they walked down the steps together and down the street a bit, where Gavin was waiting, but Harry didn’t acknowledge the purchase once—or the fact that one of the items inside the bag had been intended as a gift for Jack—during the entire walk back to the car.

Jack had barely placed his fingers on the handle of the rear door when Harry suddenly walked past him to tap on the passenger-side window instead. He waited for Gavin to roll the window down while Jack stood there behind him, at a loss for whether to just get in or wait for Harry to figure out whatever the hell it was that he was doing.

“You can drive back to the hotel ahead of us,” Harry told Gavin as soon as the window was down. “We’ll meet you back there in a little while.”

Jack could just make out the slightly dubious expression on Gavin’s face from where he was stood, but whatever small speck of hope remained that they wouldn’t have to do even more walking was quickly crushed when Gavin nodded and rolled the window back up again without uttering a word in either agreement or protest. He was more of the strong, silent type, apparently.

Jack finally stepped aside just as the car began to peel away from the kerb, leaving him stranded on the pavement with Harry as his guide once more. Jack turned to Harry with an exasperated look that went unacknowledged and then followed him further down the street without so much as an explanation for where they were going first.

Eventually Harry stopped after fifteen minutes or so of twists and turns that Jack could make little sense of, but which landed them smack in the middle of a quiet tree-shaded plaza tucked between a few cafés and shops. It was far enough from the main road they’d come from that there was little foot traffic moving through the area, even for midday, and Harry took a seat at one of the little tables in the middle where there was a bit of sun shining through. He looked up at Jack as soon as he was settled in with an expectant expression.

Jack followed his lead and sat down on the bench opposite, though he felt a bit more hesitant about the whole deal, still not sure why Harry had led them somewhere so secluded instead of just heading back to the hotel with Gavin.

Harry still had the bag from the jewellery shop sat on top of the table and cradled between both of his hands, but it wasn’t until Jack had sat down across from him that he finally reached inside to procure two carefully wrapped packages, both small enough to fit comfortably in the palm of Harry’s hands, though each was distinctive in its own right.

The first was small and square, and when Harry unwrapped it, Jack could see a velvet case underneath the brown paper wrapping like the kind he associated with marriage proposals. It was no surprise, then, when Harry opened it up to reveal the silver raven’s head ring that Jack had picked out for him during their first visit to the shop.

Jack watched silently as Harry lifted the ring up so that the sunlight glinted off the metal curves and edges. He examined it from nearly every angle, squinting through the glare, and then finally lowered it back down before sliding it without ceremony onto his right ring finger.

Harry glanced up to meet Jack’s eyes once the ring was on, a slight smile playing at his lips. “Don’t want to give anyone the impression we’re moving too fast,” he said, clearly joking. “Otherwise I’d have preferred to have it on my left.”

For whatever reason, Jack couldn’t muster up the effort needed to force out a laugh in response. He just stared at Harry, completely stone-faced, as Harry reached for the second item from the jewellery shop and began to unwrap it.

He didn’t get very far. He’d only just peeled the top layer away when he suddenly paused, looked up at Jack, and pushed the box, wrapping and all, across the table toward him.

Jack met Harry’s gaze with an uncertain expression of his own as he pulled the box a bit closer. He waited until Harry nodded for him to continue before unwrapping it with just as much care as Harry had used, and within a few seconds, he had revealed another velvet-covered case much like the one that had contained Harry’s ring, though Jack’s was much slimmer and more rectangular in shape.

Jack hesitated again before prying open the case to find another piece of jewellery inside, which was no shock considering its source, though Jack was surprised to note that instead of a ring, Harry had purchased a necklace instead, with a long, thin golden chain and a small circular pendant that glimmered silver and gold in the sunlight when Jack lifted it from its resting place.

“It’s an antique coin,” Harry explained as Jack continued to examine the piece of jewellery. “Minted during the reign of Robert d'Angiò in the early fourteenth century.”

Jack could make out the minute details of the coin, which was framed in delicate gold plating to suspend it from the chain. It was an awe-inspiring object, and it was no small matter to Jack that it must have cost Harry several hundred pounds, even if that sort of thing was like pocket change to a world-famous popstar. It wasn’t pocket change to Jack, though, and more than the cost, he was floored by the fact that Harry had managed to home in on the one thing in the entire shop that would manage to genuinely impress him beyond that material value.

Jack had always been a history buff, even as a small child, and that had extended into his career, which was made up mostly of period films—because that was genuinely what he most liked doing. He enjoyed learning about the historical context of a film he’d been cast in, and he appreciated the experience of portraying characters in those settings all the more for it. He liked feeling like he was a part of history itself, and now Harry had given him a little piece of the history he coveted so much.

Jack blinked at the coin as he examined it for a few seconds longer, just taking the time to fully admire it and the craftmanship that had gone into creating it. It was objectively beautiful, even without the sentimental value Jack had already attached to it, and he couldn’t help but stare as it slowly spun in circles, the silver sheen glittering brightly with each turn.

Finally, Jack lifted his head again to meet Harry’s eyes. “Mind giving me a hand with the clasp?” he asked.

Harry’s eyes widened as he seemed to register the request, and then he quickly scrambled to his feet, nearly faceplanting straight off the bench in the process.

Jack suppressed the urge to laugh at Harry’s clumsiness and quietly waited for him to round the table so Harry could stand behind him. When Harry reached up to take both ends of the chain from his fingers, Jack allowed his eyes to drift closed. He found himself zoning out slightly as he felt Harry’s fingers brushing lightly against the nape of his neck, and by the time Harry finally let the chain drop against his skin again, Jack suddenly felt newly refreshed in his mind.

It was that sudden rush of chemicals in his brain that caused him to shoot out a hand as Harry went back to his seat, seizing his wrist and stopping him mid-stride. Jack stared up into Harry’s confused face with a fierce expression.

“Why did you act like that?” Jack demanded. “During the interviews. I thought we had an agreement.”

Harry went bright red, but he didn’t make any attempt to get free of Jack’s hold as he answered. “I suppose…I’ve been having some second thoughts,” he confessed with a pinched look on his face. “It’s just that—well, it doesn’t seem fair to you to have to pretend to be gay or bi or whatever in front of the whole world when you’re not.” Harry paused and sucked in a deep breath before continuing. “I didn’t exactly enjoy pretending to be someone _I’m_ not,” he finished in a quieter voice.

Jack struggled for a moment to think of an adequate response. He let Harry’s wrist go, suddenly hyperaware of the feeling of Harry’s sun-warmed skin under his fingers.

“It’s not exactly the same,” Jack finally replied. It was strange finding himself in the position of having to reassure Harry that they should keep going through with this scheme when he’d almost always been the more reluctant party in the past. But now…. “I think it’s a bit too late to pass things off as just friends, aye?” Jack pointed out. “I mean, if it had just been the dinner dates, then perhaps we could get away with denying it, but there’s already photos of us kissing out there in the world. And my family, the only people in my life I care about—they already know about you. If I have to endure a couple years of pretending to be bi-curious before deciding it wasn’t my thing, then so be it.” He made a sweeping gesture with his newly-freed hand, trying to inject a bit of levity back into the conversation. “We live in a modern era.”

Nothing Jack had said to Harry was untrue, but he felt vaguely ill after saying it, all the same.

Harry looked equally uncomfortable, but he merely nodded in response to Jack’s argument. “So we’ll announce our official status on the red carpet tonight, then,” he confirmed. He swallowed hard. “What word should I use?”

“What do you mean?” Jack asked, confused by the question.

Harry gestured vaguely between them. “Like, for us,” he clarified. “As a couple. Boyfriends?”

Jack considered it, weighing the word in his mind as he stared at Harry, trying to visualise it applying to them in an official context. He’d used it in his own head before and had it applied to him by others, but it didn’t feel as weighty as it should now that Harry had said it out loud. It didn’t feel like it fit.

“Too juvenile,” Jack decided. “Maybe we should fancy it up a bit. Partner?” He tested the word out on his tongue and was pleased with the results.

Harry nodded along with a placid expression. “Partner it is,” he agreed.

They didn’t linger in the plaza for too much longer after that, only staying long enough to collect their rubbish and make sure they hadn’t left a mess of wrapping paper on the table they’d been sat at before returning to the hotel.

Jack’s pendant lay flush against his skin underneath his shirt, and somehow, it felt as though it was emanating its own heat, like a brand, and he couldn’t help but reach up to touch it every few seconds even though there was no need to reassure himself it was still there.

It only took a single glance to determine that Harry was fidgeting in a similar manner with the new ring on his right hand, though it was entirely possible that was due to something as simple as discomfort. Jack wasn’t even sure how Harry could stand to wear that much jewellery on his fingers in the first place.

Once they were back at the hotel, they went straight up to their floor, and Jack watched as Harry knocked on Gavin’s door to let him know that they’d returned—though he didn’t understand why a text message wouldn’t have sufficed.

Harry then walked into their room ahead of Jack and flopped down with a sigh onto the centre of the bed. He lay there for just a second while Jack watched curiously before sitting up again and reaching for the phone by the bed.

“What are you doing?” Jack wondered.

“Ordering room service for lunch,” Harry replied simply. “What do you want?”

“What do they have?” Jack shot back.

Harry’s eyes narrowed a bit as he stared at Jack with the hotel phone pressed to his ear. “I’ll order for you,” he decided before glancing down to dial room service.

Jack rolled his eyes as he made his way to the other side of the bed to sit down with a sigh. He toed his boots off, not anticipating needing them at any point in the next few hours, and then pulled his feet up onto the bed and stretched out with a groan. When he turned his head, Harry was staring straight at him, the phone still clutched in his hand.

“Did you finish ordering?” Jack asked him. He’d stopped paying attention as soon as Harry removed any potential for decision-making from him and had tuned out the details of whatever Harry had been saying to the person on the other end.

“Yes,” Harry replied automatically. “I mean—” He suddenly seemed to realise that he still had the phone in his hand and slammed it down with an unexpected amount of force. “Yeah, I’m finished. It should be ready in about twenty minutes or so.”

“Seems quick,” Jack noted, though it wasn’t like he had much experience with ordering room service himself.

Harry didn’t respond for several seconds, and when he finally did open his mouth again, it wasn’t to chat about room service. “I suppose we should go over what’s going to happen tonight,” he said cautiously.

Jack glanced over at Harry again to find a sobering expression on his face. “Okay…” he replied.

Harry turned away and tucked his feet under himself as he scooted away from Jack toward the opposite edge of the bed. The position he ended up in sort of reminded Jack of a cat.

“So we’ll walk the red carpet together,” Harry said quickly, as though it was imperative that he get through the explanation as fast as possible for some reason. “I’ll lead and you’ll stay just behind me with a hand on my back, here,” he said, gesturing toward the lower portion of his spine. “No hand-holding, because it’s a high-profile event and that’ll just seem tacky.”

Jack raised an eyebrow at hearing that, but he certainly wasn’t about to question the decision. Privately, he was grateful that they were intending to keep physical contact at a minimum, because the idea of walking the red carpet with Harry was already nerve-wracking enough, and Jack didn’t need anything else to worry about—like whether their body language was convincing enough to hold up under the ensuing mass scrutiny of high-quality images and video on social media.

“We’ll have to do a few photo ops and at least one interview,” Harry continued, levelling a meaningful stare at Jack as he spoke. “The woman from this morning—we’ve actually met before, and I like her, so that’s why I’m trusting her with the confirmation of our relationship.”

Jack nodded. “Will I have to say anything?”

“Probably not?” Harry replied uncertainly. “If you do, I should be able to field any questions you can’t handle; you can just tap me on the back if you want me to take over.”

“Okay.” That sounded like a fine plan to Jack. He had a tendency to ramble during red carpet interviews, which for films was never really a big deal, but this was lightyears outside of his comfort zone.

“And then after we’re through with all the red carpet bullshit,” Harry continued, sounding stressed enough by the prospect that Jack turned his head again to look over at him in surprise, “we’ll go inside and greet the event organisers.”

That didn’t really sound all too difficult, but judging from the look on Harry’s face, it wasn’t something to look forward to. “Is that a bad thing?” Jack asked. “Do you not like one of them or something?”

Harry shook his head without meeting Jack’s eyes. “No,” he said tightly. “Just nervous about—” He drew in a sharp breath. “I don’t want to make a bad impression is all.”

“Ah.” Jack paused for a few seconds, waiting for Harry to continue, but when he didn’t, Jack decided he could probably use a bit of prodding. “All right, so what happens after we talk to them?”

Harry blinked rapidly, as though suddenly coming out of a trance. “Right, well, someone will be there to show us to our seats for the dinner portion,” he explained, “and then after we eat there’s going to be a short programme showcasing the organisation and discussing where the funds will be allocated to.”

“So dinner and a show,” Jack said archly, “except that the show is designed to make everyone feel a bit better about dropping fifteen grand on the dinner part?”

Harry glanced over at him with a sour-lemon expression. “If that’s how you want to look at it,” he replied in a cool tone.

There was a knock at the door before Jack could come up with a response. It was earlier than either of them had been told to expect their lunch, but Harry merely frowned as he climbed off the bed to answer it.

“Must be room service,” Harry called back to Jack as he reached for the handle.

Jack could just make out the silhouette on the other side of the door as Harry opened it. It wasn’t room service, but instead Gavin waiting with two garment bags slung over each arm.

“They’re finished already?” Harry said quizzically as he took the bags from Gavin, who just let out a grunt of assent before going back to his room.

Jack watched as Harry examined the stickers on each of the bags for a moment before dropping one onto the foot of the bed. He took the other and hung it up neatly on the curtain rod over the window.

“That one’s yours,” Harry said to Jack, pointing out the one he’d carelessly discarded before neatly hanging his own.

Jack didn’t move to collect it. “Does this mean I’m finally allowed to see what your suit looks like now?”

Harry stared at Jack without moving, his lips slowly pulling into a shit-eating grin. “No,” he said with an odd-sounding chuckle.

Just then, there was another knock at the door, this one lighter and more rapid than Gavin’s had been.

Harry gave Jack a pointed look. “_That_ one’s probably room service,” he said before turning on one heel and marching over to the door to answer it without waiting for a response from Jack, who didn’t even bother to get up.

It was room service, and as much as Jack wanted to resent Harry for ordering for him without giving him the opportunity to pick something himself, he couldn’t deny that the smells wafting from the trays of food that had been wheeled in were making his mouth water.

“Bon appétit,” Jack said in his best attempt at a French accent as he picked up some of the silverware before diving in.

That got a laugh out of Harry, and Jack couldn’t help but smile along to match it.

Photo reference for the pendant:


	18. Chapter 18

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Twitter: @vondrostes & @vondrostesupd8s  
Tumblr: @vondrostes

Jack was in a noticeably better mood after eating lunch, which would have been no surprise to anyone involved in raising him as a child. He was much easier going with some food in his stomach, even more so with a bit of nicotine in his system, but since the latter was pretty much out of the question these days, Jack would take what he could get.

Jack reclined against the pillows on his side of the bed and stared up at Harry as he walked back in the room after setting their finished lunch cart back outside in the hall. “Is there time to take a nap before we have to get ready?” Jack asked, already feeling his eyelids getting heavier at the mere suggestion of shuteye in the wake of all the carbohydrates he’d just consumed.

Harry glanced down at his phone and looked up again to meet Jack’s eyes. “As long as it’s a short one,” he said with a neutral expression, before climbing into bed alongside Jack—much to the latter’s surprise.

But Jack chose not to say anything as Harry lifted his phone above his head and set an alarm on it for ninety minutes from the present time.

“That should give us long enough to get through a full REM cycle,” Harry explained matter-of-factly. “So we won’t be groggy when we wake up.”

“Is that actually true?” Jack wondered, his face half-mashed into the pillow, his eyes half-lidded already.

Harry paused. “I think so,” he replied. “I read it in a magazine at the dentist’s.”

“Ah,” Jack said sleepily. “So it must be true.”

Harry rolled his eyes before scooting down on the bed and rolling over to face Jack, his face serene as he pulled up the duvet to his chin and settled in for their nap.

Jack continued to stare at Harry for just a few minutes longer before finally allowing his eyes to drift closed as well.

Jack was shaken awake some unknowable amount of time later, feeling refreshed by the nap but taken aback by just how close Harry’s face was to his own. He rolled over automatically with a yawn, reaching up a hand to shield his eyes against the light. “What happened to your alarm?” he asked. He’d never heard it go off.

“You slept straight through it,” Harry remarked with an audible note of amusement. “I hope you’ll be able to make it through the rest of the evening without falling asleep at the dinner table.”

“I’m not _that_ tired,” Jack retorted. “I just needed some time to recharge.” He sat up and stretched before climbing out of bed and padding over to the bathroom door. “Need to piss,” he called back before closing it between them to do just that.

When he emerged less than two minutes later, Jack found Harry sat on the far side of the bed, staring up almost wistfully at the garment bag hanging from the curtain rod above the window. Jack paused just outside the doorway and crossed his arms over his chest, just watching Harry for a moment in silence before finally opening his mouth to break it. “Is it finally time, then?” he asked.

Harry glanced over his shoulder at Jack with a soft sigh. “It’s time,” he replied as he stood up to retrieve the garment bag from where it hung. “You finished with the bathroom?” he asked.

Jack nodded. He was mildly surprised when Harry rounded the bed and stalked straight past him without saying a word, the bathroom door slamming behind him with a resounding bang. Jack wasn’t offended by Harry’s behaviour; he certainly seemed stressed by what they had ahead of them, but that wasn’t in any way reassuring to Jack, who was nervous enough already.

Jack stared after Harry at the closed door for a few more seconds before turning around again and going over to where he’d left his own garment bag, inside of which was the suit he’d tried on before in all its ostentatious glory. Jack still didn’t feel the outfit suited him at all, but it was Harry’s thing and it was a little too late to do anything about it now, so he carefully dressed himself in the pink and grey fabrics, taking care not to do anything that might damage the clothes as he pulled them on.

Jack told himself that his conscientiousness was less unfounded paranoia than practicality; he didn’t want to potentially be on the hook for causing a rip in a suit jacket that likely cost a small fortune—just like everything else Harry had ever bought for him—even though somewhere deep down Jack knew that Harry would never actually hold him accountable for that sort of thing.

Once Jack was fully dressed, he found himself at a loss for what to do next. Harry still had yet to emerge from the bathroom in his own suit, so Jack sat down at the foot of the bed (very carefully) and waited for him to come out.

When another ten minutes had passed with no sign of Harry, Jack finally ended up pulling out his phone just to have something to look at that wasn’t the watercolour painting hanging above the telly. Unfortunately, there wasn’t much in the way of distraction to be found on his phone, either. He had a few curious messages from friends and family back home asking about his trip, all of which were fairly easily dismissed, and Jack had learned his lesson about social media. He wasn’t touching Twitter for at least the next month.

Jack was just finishing up an email about potential auditions for a couple indie films in the next few weeks when he heard the door quietly creak open. He glanced up reflexively, only for his jaw to hit the floor as Harry emerged in an outfit that Jack wasn’t even sure he had the capacity to describe.

It wasn’t a suit, but it wasn’t a dress either—closer to something in between, with a bulky cape-like swathe of pink fabric obscuring a pair of flowing silver and gold trousers underneath. The outer sleeves draped down to Harry’s elbows, and shimmering sheer mesh covered his forearms and wrists. The outer garment was embroidered with metallic floral accents, and the neckline plunged down low enough that Harry’s butterfly tattoo, as well as many of the others, could clearly be seen unobscured.

Harry brought a shy hand up to his face as Jack stared at him wordlessly, still awestruck by the entire ensemble. “Too much?” he joked. He seemed to be anticipating a negative reaction.

Jack shook his head quickly. “No, you look…” he said, stumbling over his words a bit as he struggled to get out a coherent response. “I mean, you look amazing. Yeah. Wow.” Jack swallowed hard and stood up, glancing between himself and Harry and finally understanding how their outfits for the night were meant to complement each other. “So where are we meant to go now that we’re all dressed up?” he asked.

Harry looked only slightly reassured by Jack’s reaction as he responded. “Iris is waiting over in Gavin’s room to do our hair and makeup.”

“Okay,” Jack replied. He made a sweeping gesture toward the door, indicating that Harry should lead the way. And if Harry was expecting any protest from him regarding the makeup bit—well, he’d be disappointed. Jack had spent most of his acting career doing live theatre after all.

Iris was indeed waiting for them in Gavin’s room, with an even more intimidating array of products than the ones she’d had at her disposal for Harry’s interviews. She pushed Jack down into the chair first, and he didn’t even have time to react before she was covering his entire body with a salon cape to make sure his suit didn’t get ruined as she applied a bit of foundation to his face before fussing over his hair.

Eventually, Iris let Jack up and turned her attentions to Harry instead. Her work on him took exponentially longer, but when Harry finally emerged from his cape like a butterfly exiting its cocoon, it was clear that Iris had worked her magic well.

There was a touch of glitter smeared over Harry’s eyelids and adorning his nails, which were painted a baby pink underneath the silver and gold flecks to match both their outfits. His lips had been darkened to a berry-red that Jack had to tear his eyes from to take in the elaborately braided bun Iris had crafted, held together by jewelled pins that sparkled under the lights.

“You ready?” Harry asked Jack as he smoothed his hands down over the silky fabric of his cape, though Iris had done her job effectively and there was nary a bit of debris to be found after Harry’s time in the makeup chair.

“If I have to be,” Jack replied honestly.

Without further ado, they headed down to the car and carefully fit themselves inside without disturbing their hair or clothing, which was quite a feat in Harry’s case.

They had a fairly lengthy drive to the event hall where the red carpet and charity dinner were taking place, and Jack noticed Harry fidgeting almost as soon as they pulled away from the hotel. For his own part, he did his best to zone out completely during the drive, choosing to stare out the window and passively take in the scenery in an effort to keep himself from worrying about what was about to follow.

As soon as they arrived and Jack stepped out of the car, however, any trace of serenity went straight out the window. He was so overwhelmed by the commotion taking place all around them that he only just remembered to turn and extend a hand to Harry to help him out of the car, and afterward, he scrambled to get into position like Harry had requested, with a hand on his lower back.

The two of them slowly proceeded up the red carpet just like that, with Harry stopping them for photo ops along the way, each of which Jack carefully maintained a blue steel for after watching several people ahead of them blatantly refuse to smile for the cameras.

Finally, they neared the end of the carpet, with Jack coming out of it all relatively unscathed, but just when he thought they might be able to escape without the encounter he had been quietly dreading for hours, he caught sight of the American interviewer from that morning waiting for them just a few yards from the entrance steps.

Jack held his breath instinctively as they approached. He could barely hear her over the pounding noise of blood rushing through his head, and Harry’s responses sounded just as far away. His heartbeat felt like it was in his throat, and irrationally, he found himself worrying that the camera would be able to see it throbbing away there right behind his Adam’s apple.

“It’s safe to assume that Mr Lowden is your date tonight, right?” the woman asked, though her voice was still muffled to Jack’s ears, like his head was full of cotton balls.

Harry nodded with a soft smile. “Yes,” he replied, “that’s right.”

“And are you attending as just friends, or is it something more?”

Harry laughed lightly. “We’re partners, yeah,” he told her with an ease that would have taken Jack’s breath away if he’d been able to take in any air in the first place. Finally, he started to move back a step, signalling the end of their run through the gauntlet. “You’ll have to excuse us,” he said in parting. “We should probably head inside.”

“Thanks for your time,” the woman replied brightly before backing off, clearly satisfied with the sound bites she’d gotten from Harry. “And good luck,” she added, aiming a wink directly at Jack as they walked away.

Jack wasn’t sure if he should acknowledge the gesture or not, but it didn’t seem like good timing to say much of anything at all as they made their way up the stairs to the ornate doors at the entrance to the event hall. Harry was still steering them subtly through the crowd despite it being Jack’s hand on his back, and meanwhile, Jack ascended each step precariously, feeling like his legs were made of jelly.

Somehow, Jack managed to compose himself a bit by the time they made it inside, where they were greeted almost immediately by the event director and the chairwoman of the foundation hosting the dinner.

Now, it was Harry’s turn to become a trembling mess, and Jack found himself curling his hand even more tightly around the curve of Harry’s waist as they approached the elderly pair to exchange brief and professionally impersonal greetings with them both.

All the energy seemed to have been sapped from Harry as well as Jack when they were finally seated at one of the small circular tables filling the hall, at which two other couples were already sat. Jack was surprised when he managed to hit it off with the bloke next to him, who happened to also be an actor, and his mood improved even more significantly when the food was finally brought out.

In sharp contrast, Harry continued to look more and more poorly as the evening progressed, to the point where Jack was actually starting to become concerned that he might vomit right there in front of everyone in the hall.

“Are you feeling all right?” Jack asked as he leaned in close just as the lights went down all around them, shrouding everything but the illuminated stage in shadow.

Harry shook his head and then scooted his chair away from the table. “I’ll be back,” he said curtly before dashing off into the darkness.

Jack was bewildered, but he didn’t want to cause a scene by running off after Harry, who he assumed must have gone to the toilets to recover from his nerves or whatever else was causing him to appear as though he’d been poisoned.

But with each passing second, Jack’s worry started to grow, and it was reaching a fever-pitch a few minutes later when the man on-stage introducing the programme closed his remarks by announcing that they would start things off with a short speech from one of the foundation’s biggest contributors.

Jack braced a hand against the table, preparing to make a run for it as soon as he spotted the opportunity to exit without drawing too much attention, but then the curtain opened and out stepped none other than Harry himself.

Jack blinked a few times, stunned. He couldn’t do anything but sit there as Harry stepped up to the mic and started to speak in his low, rambling voice in front of hundreds of celebrities, all watching him with just as much intensity as Jack in that moment.

“Hi,” Harry said rather informally. “I’m Harry. Um, I went through a few drafts of the speech I wanted to give today before finally deciding to stick with the most honest thing I _could_ say to convince you that what we’re doing here at the foundation is important.” He paused to take a breath. “And that’s because when I was young—very young, too young really to know what it meant—I realised I was different than most of the other kids my age. And even in secondary school, when all of my friends started to talk about girls, I realised that I couldn’t talk about what _I_ was feeling, and I realised that I couldn’t ask them for advice about the people that I liked, and that sort of contributed to this disconnect that I think a lot of kids feel in school because they can’t go to their friends or their parents for relationship or even sex advice. I think that if I’d had access to the education that we’re trying to provide LGBTQ youth with this online database, I would have been more comfortable with myself from an early age. We want to provide the next generation with something we never had, and that’s why I think the foundation is so important. We want LGBTQ teenagers now, and in the future, to have the same formative experiences as their peers, and we want them to be able to do it safely. Um.” He paused for several seconds, and then cleared his throat quietly. “Thank you,” he finished in a small voice before quickly retreating behind the curtain as the announcer took charge again to transition into the next stage of the fundraising programme.

There was no denying the fact that Harry’s speech had been clumsy and clearly unrehearsed, but looking around, it didn’t seem as though there was a single person within Jack’s view that hadn’t taken Harry’s words to heart.

Jack slumped down in his chair, still a bit taken aback by the fact that Harry had neglected to mention his speaking obligation at all. He was barely paying attention to what was going on on-stage now, but he was still hyperaware of Harry’s absence, and it felt like every atom in his body was vibrating intensely in anticipation as he waited for Harry to return.

But Harry didn’t return. Not after another thirty seconds, not after three minutes, and when the clock in the back of Jack’s head started to creep closer to the ten-minute mark, he finally made up his mind. He had to go looking for Harry.

It was a simple matter to ignore the murmurs around him as Jack abruptly shoved back his chair and exited the event hall in search of Harry. It ended up being easier than he’d thought to find him; as soon as he pushed open the door to the men’s toilet, he spotted Harry with his hands braced against the sinks, bent over and sucking in huge lungfuls of air.

Jack walked straight at him and placed a hand on Harry’s shoulder, intending to ask if he was all right, but Harry didn’t give him the chance.

Straightaway, Harry whirled around and grabbed Jack by the face, pressing their lips together and kissing him deeply, his tongue delving into Jack’s mouth as soon as he parted his lips instinctively to let Harry in.

Jack felt like the kiss was never going to end, and then all of a sudden it did—and as Harry pulled away, he started to get down on his knees with a determined expression. There was a heat behind his gaze that terrified Jack, and he reached down to pull Harry up again, still breathless from the kiss.

“Later,” Jack told him, feeling something akin to regret starting to form in his gut even as he said the words, but he told himself that he was doing the right thing, that it was too much of a risk to let Harry take what he wanted here, where anyone could walk in and see them.

Harry nodded and stepped forward to kiss him again. Jack let him.

The rest of the night passed in a blur contrary to Jack’s expectations. Now that he was dreading the inevitability of what he’d promised Harry in the toilets, it was like his nerves about the event itself had latched onto an entirely new target, making time seem to speed up in accordance with his nauseous anxiety over what was to come.

It was the only thing Jack could think about in the car on the way back to their hotel, but when they finally left Gavin in the hallway and walked into their hotel room, Harry barely acknowledged Jack at all. Instead, he made straight for his suitcase, rifling through it for a few seconds before emerging with a scrap of fabric balled up in his hands as he turned to face Jack with a stony expression.

“I want to go for a swim,” Harry announced. “You’re welcome to join me.”

Jack nodded, still a bit befuddled by Harry’s behaviour and not sure what to expect next. He got up as Harry went to the bathroom to change and grabbed a spare pair of pants from his own luggage, since he hadn’t exactly had the foresight to bring swimming trunks like Harry.

It took Harry considerably less time to get changed out of his cape-gown-thing than it had to get into it, and when he emerged from the bathroom, he was dressed in only a pair of tiny, hip-hugging white shorts that Jack had to very carefully avert his eyes from as Harry led the way to the lifts, barefoot and nearly naked.

They proceeded down to the hotel courtyard in complete silence, with only the jingle of the keyring Harry stopped to acquire from the front desk so they could even access the pool at night ringing loudly in Jack’s ears as they walked outside and unlocked the gate.

The pool itself was isolated from the rest of the courtyard by lush greenery, giving the illusion of privacy even though they were outdoors and clearly visible from the higher floors—not that anyone looking down on them would be able to distinguish either of their faces from that height.

Harry slipped in immediately, leaving the keyring and his phone perched on a nearby deck chair as he ducked under the water. Jack had chosen to leave all his belongings upstairs in the room, not wanting to risk the possibility of even a single droplet of water somehow rendering his phone unusable.

Jack slowly walked in after Harry and began to swim aimlessly through the water. He wasn’t sure if Harry wanted him to say something, to break the silence, but he didn’t understand why it had to be his responsibility if that was the case.

They swam awkward circles around each other for nearly fifteen minutes, Harry’s body a tantalising display of flesh glowing white in the underwater illumination, and finally, Jack just snapped.

He pushed Harry up against the nearest edge of the pool, connecting their mouths with just as much ferocity as Harry had shown him back in the toilets. “Tell me you want this,” he growled into Harry’s mouth before kissing him again.

Harry pulled away just far enough for their eyes to connect, his green irises bright and luminous as though they were casting their own light in the darkness. “God, yes,” he breathed. “Yes, I fucking want it. I want _you_.”

Jack was barely aware of what he was doing, thinking, planning as he spun Harry around and bent him over so that he was braced against the deck, face-down, his arse in the air as Jack yanked his shorts down just far enough to spread him open and get a good look at him.

Harry whined pitifully, his skin pebbling up in the cool evening air as he lay there, half out of the water, waiting for Jack to make the next move.

But Jack had only done this sort of thing once before, and the girl he’d done it with hadn’t particularly liked it, and suddenly, he was terrified of hurting Harry, of fucking this up royally in any number of ways.

Harry clearly didn’t share his concerns. “Please,” he begged. “Come on, want you to fuck me already.”

They didn’t have lube or a condom or any of the essentials Jack knew they needed, but he didn’t want to take another rain check and risk losing this opportunity for good. He placed his own chlorine-scented fingers in his mouth, slicking them up the best he could before carefully pressing inside Harry’s body, slowly, trying to match the way Harry responded by relaxing to let him in. And then his fingers _were_ in, and Jack was _inside _Harry, even just in this small way, and Harry was writhing against his hands, bucking his hips up to meet Jack’s exploratory thrusts with frantic movements of his own.

Now that Jack was sure that he wasn’t going to break Harry, he moved his fingers faster, fucking in and out of him as deeply as possibly until Harry was reduced to a writhing, panting mess against the pool deck, practically sobbing as he seized up around Jack’s fingers and came with a shout.

Jack wasn’t even sure if he was really conscious of the decision to yank down his own pants and finish onto Harry’s lower back, but when Harry heaved himself up out of the water and rolled over onto the deck with a blissed-out sigh, he certainly didn’t seem like he was upset about it.

Jack blinked at Harry a few times from where he was stood in the shallow end of the pool, still with his prick in his hands. Eventually, he realised what a knob he must have looked and tucked himself away again as he pushed off into the deeper water.

Harry sat up and turned to look at him. “I’m going to go up and take a shower,” he said dreamily while getting to his feet. There was a clear invitation in his voice that made Jack’s stomach turn.

“I think I’m gonna keep swimming for a bit,” Jack replied. He ducked down under the water, and when he came up for air again, Harry was already gone.

Later, when Jack finally convinced himself to get out and go back upstairs, he returned to a pitch-black room, with Harry already in bed and from the sound of it, fast asleep. Jack moved as quietly as possible as he stripped off his water-soaked pants in the shower while giving his hair a quick rinse, and when he got out, he moved over to his suitcase to retrieve a fresh pair and to check his phone in case he had another email from his agent.

But his phone was no longer sat out on top of his suitcase where he’d left it.

After a couple minutes of searching, Jack found it on the nightstand, and when he turned the screen on, he found himself staring down at a text message from Saoirse that he knew he hadn’t received before they’d gone downstairs to swim.

_We should talk about things soon._

Jack hovered his thumb over the reply button. He glanced up at the shape of Harry under the blankets, weighing the options at his disposal. Then, finally: _Tomorrow?_

He hit send.

Photo reference for Harry's outfit:


	19. Chapter 19

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I was feeling generous, so here's the last chapter a day early! I'm not ready at the moment to start posting anything new, so please check out my social media if you want to see what I'm working on. :)
> 
> Twitter: @vondrostes & @vondrostesupd8s  
Tumblr: @vondrostes

Saoirse was staying on the sixth floor of some posh hotel in London—which was fairly near Harry’s house, Jack was surprised to discover. She’d given him the address and room number and little else, but Jack assumed that Calum was probably out of the room at the time she’d specified, or she wouldn’t have arranged the meeting to begin with.

Jack felt strangely calm as he approached the door to her room to discover that she’d propped it open using one of Calum’s shoes, wedged against the doorframe. He pushed the door open and spotted Saoirse immediately, stood on the balcony through a set of French doors on the other side of the room. Her back was to Jack as he entered, and she didn’t turn around when he approached her.

Jack settled himself in with his back against the railing, palms braced behind him as he waited for an acknowledgement that didn’t seem to be coming. “Not worried about some mental fan breaking in?” he finally asked, just to break the silence.

Saoirse inclined her head ever so slightly to look over at him, but there wasn’t a hint of amusement in her face as she responded. “I suppose you must have a fair bit of experience with that sort of thing by now,” she replied coolly. She didn’t have to mention Harry’s name for Jack to realise what she meant by the jab.

“You wanted to talk?” Jack said, deciding to just leave her comment alone for the sake of not entering into an argument before they even had a chance to discuss…whatever it was she was so interested in talking about.

Saoirse nodded, turning her head again to stare out over the crowded streets below. “About you and Harry,” she answered.

Jack had suspected as much, but he winced a little regardless. “Ask away.”

Saoirse didn’t even do the courtesy of looking him in the eye as she uttered the question: “Was all this just to make me jealous?”

Jack reeled. Somehow, he hadn’t even considered the possibility that she thought his relationship with Harry was a farce designed to get back at _her_, instead of the truth—that it _was_ a farce, but one that had very little to do with Jack himself.

“You think I would do something like that?” Jack replied, careful to keep his tone even as he shifted away from her to stand at the opposite end of the balcony with his arms folded over his chest.

Saoirse still didn’t move. “I don’t know what you’d do, Jack,” she told him. “We haven’t spoken in months. You turned into a different person after we broke up.”

Jack blinked furiously at her, speechless for several seconds before finally mustering up a response. “What I have with Harry,” he said slowly, “has absolutely fuck all to do with you.” He waited until Saoirse finally turned to look at him again before shaking his head and storming straight out of the room again. If she had anything to say to him after that, Jack didn’t care to hear it.

The photos hit the next day, taking Jack by surprise at breakfast, when he was sat alone in his flat with a spoonful of Frosties in his mouth, expecting little out of the day, but certainly not a phone call from Harry at half-ten.

“’Lo?” Jack answered, his mouth still full of cereal.

“There’s a car outside,” Harry said flatly. And then the line went dead.

Jack didn’t find out the purpose of his visit until he was sat in Harry’s sitting room with Pam and Harry on the sofa across from him, watching as he scrolled through an entire gallery of photos posted on The Sun’s website of himself and Saoirse conversing on her balcony.

There was nothing explicitly damning about any of it, but apparently even the mere suggestion of Jack being seen with a woman alone so soon after his relationship with Harry had been revealed was enough for the tabloid circus to concoct an elaborate web of lies implicating Jack as an adulterer.

“This is all a load of shite,” Jack announced after reading the article. He glanced up into Harry and Pam’s faces, finding nothing but stony expressions. “People don’t really believe this, do they?”

“It doesn’t really matter what people believe,” Pam replied as she leaned over to take back the iPad. “You shouldn’t have done something like this without consulting me first. It reflects badly on both of you.”

“I didn’t _do_ anything,” Jack protested. “She’s my brother’s girlfriend; surely, we’re allowed to have a fucking conversation.”

“But she’s your ex, too, isn’t she?” Pam shot back. “Even if people weren’t aware of it at the time, if someone sees this article and decides to let The Sun in on that little detail, your reputation could be seriously damaged by any rumours that crop up as a result. And by association, Harry’s, as well.”

Jack didn’t see the logic in that, but he wasn’t so naïve as to think there was anything logical about the culture of celebrity gossip. “So what should I do?” he asked dully.

Pam shook her head. “Just…keep a low profile for now,” she advised. “I’m still thinking of ways to spin the rumours in Harry’s favour, but if there’s a chance we can let them die down naturally within the next few weeks, that might be a preferable solution.”

Harry, who had been completely silent from Jack’s arrival up until this point, suddenly decided to chime in. “Well, at least it’d make for a sympathetic break up story,” he said, the bitterness in his tone almost tangible.

Jack’s gaze flitted over to Harry, and he frowned at the seemingly unjustified anger burning behind Harry’s eyes. “But I didn’t cheat,” he argued. “I wasn’t even—”

“It doesn’t matter,” Harry said bluntly, cutting Jack off before he could explain that he’d spoken to Saoirse for literally all of five minutes before leaving. He turned slightly toward Pam before pushing up off the sofa. “Do whatever you think is best,” he told her as he exited the room. “I’ll call cars for both of you.”

Pam exchanged a commiserative look with Jack and shrugged as she stood up. Jack followed her lead, and the two of them made their way out of the house into the front garden to wait to be picked up.

“Can I ask you something?” Jack said suddenly, interrupting the still silence that enshrouded them as they both stared at the front gate in anticipation.

Pam glanced over at him, her brows creased in the centre of her forehead, and then nodded.

“Can you hold off on like, doing anything?” Jack asked hesitantly. “Until I’ve had another chance to talk about things with Harry, at least?”

Pam’s eyebrows slowly raised. “Do you really think it’s the best time for that?” she asked, as though she already knew what Jack intended to say.

Jack nodded. He was sure.

Jack was determined to fix things with Harry at whatever cost, but he was smart enough to know that he should probably give him a bit of time to cool off first before engaging in another confrontation. When Jack was dropped off near his flat, instead of heading straight in to inevitably mope in front of the telly, dreading the discussion he needed to have, he instead made for a nearby park, convincing himself on a whim that a walk in the fresh air would help clear his mind.

It worked, to some degree, but on his way back, he found himself stopped in front of a corner shop that he used to frequent before he’d made his last attempt at quitting smoking. Jack knew that he could easily slip inside, purchase a carton of fags, and begin his self-flagellating tomorrow—as he’d done many times before—but he was surprised to find that even now, faced directly with temptation, he didn’t actually want to anymore.

Maybe Harry had broken him in more than one way, he thought to himself with a hint of bitter amusement before continuing back down the street.

A few steps later, Jack managed to trip over a crack in the pavement, going stumbling straight into a young woman who nearly dropped the paper bags she was holding onto the ground in front of him.

“Shit,” Jack said, putting his hands out automatically to steady her. “I’m so sorry.”

“Oh, no harm done, I’m—” The woman paused midsentence as she shifted the bags back into position in her arms, her eyes widening as she stared up into Jack’s face. “Oh my god,” she said. “You’re Jack Lowden.”

“You know who I am?” Jack replied, his surprise overriding any sensible responses he might have come up with otherwise. The last time he’d been recognised was in Glasgow, and even that sort of thing had been exceedingly rare.

The young woman in front of him nodded frantically. “I used to be a huge fan of Harry’s,” she explained, which wasn’t a very flattering comment about Harry, but he wasn’t there to hear it, so Jack supposed it wouldn’t do him any harm. “One of my friends told me about you guys after the whole—” She blushed, leading Jack to assume she was referencing the photos of them kissing back in Holmes Chapel. “Anyway, after I found out about you I watched like, your whole filmography, because I love period films and there was so much stuff I’d never even heard of before. Sorry, am I rambling? I’m rambling. Oh my god, sorry.”

Jack was quick to reassure her before offering to help carry her bags up to her flat nearby. After they parted ways, Jack returned home with a newfound determination—though he couldn’t deny that he’d snuck a quick glance behind himself as he got to his own street just to make sure he hadn’t been followed.

Once Jack was inside the safety of his flat again, he immediately reached for his phone and pulled up Twitter for the first time since he’d re-muted his notifications in Paris. He was shocked to discover that he’d been tagged in the formation of three different updates accounts dedicated solely toward archiving any content involving him (which meant Jack would have to be a lot more careful about his tweets in the future), and after a bit of digging, he realised that the people running them were all fans of Harry as well.

When Jack started to look at indirect mentions of his name, he found thousands of tweets discussing the fallout of the article in The Sun, but he was surprised to note that more people seemed to be on his side than against it, and that the people siding with him were also militant about coming to his defence too, even though they had no way of knowing his innocence any more than anybody else.

Jack dropped down onto his sofa with a sigh and stared blankly at the black television screen in front of him, floored by the realisation that he’d finally achieved his goal after all. He’d gotten exactly what he wanted from Harry, and technically speaking, that meant he no longer needed him. If Jack called up Pam right now and told her to go right ahead with seeding the rumours of their separation, it was likely that more people would rally with him than abandon him, even though by all accounts he should have been perceived as a villain by the world at large.

Equally surprising was the realisation that none of this knowledge filled Jack with the elation he might have expected a month ago if he’d known that by the end of February, he’d have all the fame and notoriety he’d constantly craved. Suddenly, none of that seemed to matter very much at all anymore.

Jack was still staring down at Twitter in absent dismay when his bout of melancholy was abruptly interrupted by the appearance of a phone call onscreen. From his parents’ house, he noted with a frown before picking up.

“Hello?” he answered, deliberately making an effort to put on a pleasant tone for the benefit of his mother, who would probably have a nervous breakdown if she thought there was the slightest thing wrong in Jack’s life.

The gruff cough on the other end of the line very clearly did not belong to Jack’s maw, however. “Is this a good time to talk?” his father asked.

Jack was speechless for a moment. He couldn’t remember the last time his da had made an actual effort to call him, especially out of the blue like this. Maybe someone had died. Fuck, he hoped someone wasn’t dead. “Aye, it’s not a bad time,” Jack replied quickly as he braced himself for bad news.

Unfortunately, his da took a bit of time to get to the point. “I’ve been meaning to call for a while,” he explained, without explaining much of anything really. “I thought I should do it on behalf of the whole family, you know, and with the things people have been saying about you lately—”

“Oh,” Jack said in a cold voice, cutting his da off before he could finish. “So that’s it, then.” Jack was angry now in a way that he almost never was, and he certainly wouldn’t have spoken like this to his father under any other circumstances. But today was a special day. An especially horrible, awful day. And Jack had reached his limit. “You’re not calling to see how I’ve been, you’re just—what—phoning to berate me for besmirching the family name? Is that it?”

A beat of silence ensued before his da finally responded. “Is that what you think, hm?”

“What else am I meant to think?” Jack replied helplessly.

There was a heavy sigh on the other end of the line. “I’m just concerned,” his da continued. “I’m concerned about you. You don’t talk to your mother anymore, Calum’s barely seen you since you’ve been in London, and the only way any of us find out what’s happening to you is from magazines at the shop. How are we mean to know how you’re holding up when you don’t speak to any of us about what you’re dealing with?”

Jack was stunned into speechlessness for several seconds as he processed his father’s response to his accusation. Maybe he’d been a little hasty in jumping to conclusions, but really, he’d never had any reason to think his da cared about his personal life or career in the past. So why now?

“I’ve been a bit overwhelmed,” Jack finally admitted once he’d cooled off a bit and regained the ability to speak. “If I could have talked to Maw about things, I would have.” It wasn’t (technically) a lie.

His da went quiet again, this time for so long that Jack had to lower his phone to check that the call was still going. “Is it overstepping,” he finally began, “if I ask you about that Harry boy?”

Jack steeled himself immediately for a reaction he knew he wouldn’t be able to avoid taking to heart. “All right,” he agreed, preparing for the worst.

His da drew in a deep breath. “Why didn’t you just tell us about him?” he asked simply.

Once again, Jack wasn’t sure what to say. “I wasn’t hiding Harry because I was ashamed,” he replied. “It’s complicated.” He’d intended to leave it at that so they could cut the conversation short, but now that his da had opened the floodgates, suddenly, Jack found he couldn’t manage to keep his mouth shut. “I wasn’t hiding my sexuality or anything from you or Maw or Calum either,” he explained. “Harry’s just…different. He’s new. I didn’t think I could be attracted to lads before him and now I’m just…I don’t really know, to be perfectly honest with you.”

“I see,” his da replied. Jack wasn’t sure how, but he was willing to leave it at that. His da paused again for just a brief moment before continuing. “And is there, ah…any truth to what they’re saying? About you and Saoirse?”

Jack was tempted to ask if his da thought there was, or if Calum thought there was. He didn’t even know if Calum had found out yet about the story, but he wasn’t sure he wanted to know. “No,” Jack replied firmly. “No, there’s not any truth to it. Not that it matters,” he tacked on glumly.

“Why’s that?”

“Because Harry seems to believe it,” Jack admitted. “Or, even if he doesn’t believe it, he’s still upset about it.” He slumped down further into his sofa with a sigh.

“Have you talked to him about it?” his da asked.

“Not really,” Jack replied. “I’m still trying to figure out what to say.” And complicating that even further was the fact that Jack didn’t even know if Harry would be willing to let him say his piece.

“Tell him the truth,” was his da’s simplistic advice. “Just tell him what you truly feel about him. If he’s right for you, then he’ll believe what you have to say, and if he doesn’t, then it wasn’t meant to be.”

Jack considered that for a few seconds before responding. Maybe his da was right, but did he really want to take that chance? Was the alternative—being tied to Harry temporarily in some fabricated parody of a relationship—really any better?

“Aye, maybe you’re right,” Jack finally agreed. “I suppose I should hang up and do that, then.” Even as much as he was dreading doing just that.

“Good luck,” was all his da had to leave him with. And then Jack was alone again with just his own thoughts for company.

He stared down silently at his phone, contemplating whether it was actually a good idea to call so soon after the altercation that morning. But then again, leaving Harry to stew in his anger without at least making an attempt to clear the air didn’t sound like a better choice in this scenario.

Jack was surprised when Harry actually answered, promptly, though his voice sounded anything but happy to hear from him when he greeted Jack with a baleful: “What do you want?”

“I think we should meet,” Jack replied carefully. “Have a chat.”

“Why?” There was an audible note of suspicion in Harry’s voice.

“Please?” Jack begged. He wasn’t above that, apparently. “I swear I’ll explain everything in person.”

It ended up being easier than Jack had anticipated to get Harry to agree to come over to his flat, and a little over an hour later, there was a knock at the door, jolting Jack out of the nervous tizzy he’d been stewing in on the sofa while waiting for Harry to arrive.

“Hey,” Jack said a bit breathlessly as he let Harry inside.

Harry didn’t acknowledge the greeting, nor did he move more than half a metre from the doorway after stepping into Jack’s flat, the arms across his chest and his icy expression just daring Jack to even try to offer him a seat.

Jack sighed, deciding that it was probably better to just get straight to it, then. “I need to tell you the real reason I took the whole fake boyfriend gig,” he confessed.

Harry’s expression morphed from anger to wariness in a fraction of a second. “Okay…” he replied dubiously, his fingers curling into his bicep as Jack struggled to find the right words.

Jack really should have written it down first. It was too late for that now, though.

“So,” Jack started before quickly drawing in a deep breath. He had his arms at his sides, his hands clenched into fists. He sort of felt like he was about to vomit, but without the actual nausea, which was an odd sensation, and not a pleasant one. He could barely stare Harry in the face as he continued. “The real reason I agreed to do all of it was because I thought I could use you to further my career,” he admitted. “I thought I’d get my name out there, and that the notoriety would help me book jobs.” It sounded even sleazier now that Jack was saying it out loud, but there was nothing he could do to take it back, and the slight look of disgust beginning to dawn on Harry’s face was only making him feel that much worse about it all.

“Did it work?” Harry asked in a rough voice. “Get any interested casting directors who want you to play an arsehole who sleeps with someone they’re using as a shortcut for fame?”

Jack’s eyes widened at the thinly veiled accusation, but he decided it was better not to directly engage. Instead, he barrelled onward as though Harry hadn’t interrupted. “Things changed for me,” he blurted out hastily. “The longer we were around each other—even though I wasn’t interested at the start, or at least, I don’t think I was…by the time we went to Paris together, I wasn’t faking it anymore.” The last bit came out as more of a plea than an explanation, and Jack stared at Harry, waiting for the hammer to fall.

Harry swallowed hard, his throat clicking loudly in the silence that had fallen in the wake of Jack’s confession. “I was _never_ faking it,” he finally managed, his voice small, which did nothing to lessen the impact of that simple statement for Jack, who found himself suddenly so far off from his expectations for this conversation that he had no idea how to respond. But before he had a chance, Harry took a step forward, his expression deadly serious. “Can I ask you a question?” he continued.

Jack nodded, still unable to form words.

Harry swallowed again and wetted his lips with the tip of his tongue. “Was there any truth to it?” he asked. “The rumours about you and Saoirse?”

Jack shook his head fervently. “No,” he replied in a sure voice. “No, there wasn’t.”

Harry had yet to take his eyes off of Jack, and Jack didn’t think he could break his gaze even if he wanted to. Harry suddenly took another step forward, and then another, and then finally he was stood right in Jack’s space, close enough that they were now breathing the same air. He lifted his hands and delicately placed them on either side of Jack’s jaw, gently cupping his face.

“Tell me you actually want this,” Harry said in a low voice. “I need to know. Right now.”

Jack blinked at him slowly, feeling as though he’d suddenly been plunged into the depths of a dream without ever realising he’d fallen asleep. “I want _you_,” he replied, brows drawing together as he stared at Harry with a parallel intensity.

The kiss that followed wasn’t unexpected, but the enthusiasm behind it caught Jack off guard, especially with the way Harry was still cradling Jack’s face like it was made of glass.

Harry’s energy was like a lit match igniting a fuse, and all of a sudden, the two of them were stumbling into Jack’s bedroom, still attached at the mouths, before falling onto the bed together, Jack rutting up between Harry’s legs as he felt himself starting to harden in his trousers.

It was at that point that Jack finally pulled away. He hadn’t been banking on things turning out this way, and there was a significant obstacle in the middle of the road they were currently on. “As much as I’d like to take things further,” he told Harry, panting as he stared down at him with wide eyes, “I don’t have lube or condoms in the flat. And I don’t think I’d want to chance being recognised coming back from the chemist with nothing but sex supplies in my bag.”

Harry shuffled a bit underneath him and jammed a hand behind himself, reaching into his back pocket to magically procure both items. “Always come prepared,” he replied in a bubbly voice. There was no trace of his earlier anger. It was like the morning hadn’t happened.

Jack leaned down to kiss him again with a laugh.

They stripped down on either side of the bed, both staring at each other intently as Harry reached behind himself to lube up while Jack took care of rolling on the condom. It wasn’t until he’d done so that Jack realised he’d assumed their roles without even asking Harry first when he grabbed the condom, and that there was a chance Harry might have wanted to switch things up since their last encounter.

“You do…like it this way, right?” Jack asked uncertainly, his fingers still frozen around the base of his cock. The way Harry had acted when Jack had fingered him in the pool would seem to indicate so, but one could never be too sure.

Harry laughed at him and flopped down onto the pillows, flat on his back. “You don’t have to look so worried about it,” he reassured Jack.

“I just thought maybe it was common courtesy to trade off,” Jack protested. “I didn’t want to pressure you into anything.”

“Luckily for you,” Harry said with a groan as he worked another finger into himself, “this is my favourite way to get off.”

“That good, eh?” Jack replied, letting his curiosity shine through as he peered between Harry’s legs to better examine what he was doing.

Harry paused, a deadpan look crossing his face as Jack lifted his gaze again to meet his eyes. “No, actually,” Harry replied in a voice radiating sarcasm. “I’m kidding, it’s truly horrible, if you must know. I definitely wouldn’t recommend it at all, and you should absolutely never put yourself through this.”

Jack rolled his eyes. “Well, thank god you’re willing to make such sacrifices,” he replied as he scooted forward on his knees.

Jack tugged Harry up into his lap to try and line them up while Harry hooked a leg around his waist, carefully guiding him in at a slow pace while Jack kept his breathing even and measured, trying to avoid any premature accidents. It had been a while since he’d had sex, even if he frequently enjoyed the company of his own hand, and it wasn’t uncommon for the first time in a long time to be a complete wash.

It was impossible for Jack to formulate words once he was all the way inside Harry, his arse clenching tight around the base of Jack’s cock while he sat there, unmoving, until Harry nudged him with a heel, like one might do to a particularly stubborn horse.

“Come on,” Harry urged, apparently not having the same issues with speech that Jack was currently experiencing. “Fuck me. Hard.”

Jack swallowed a large breath and obliged, focussing hard on Harry’s face as he started to thrust into him. He did his best to keep a steady pace, angling his hips up toward Harry’s tummy the way he was used to doing with his female partners. The anatomy was different, but the effect seemed to be more or less the same, as Harry’s breaths got shorter and closer together, turning into near-sobs by the time he reached down between them to wrap a hand around his own cock to finish himself off while Jack chased his own orgasm inside the tight, clenching heat of Harry’s body.

Afterwards, when they were both sated and lying next to each other on top of sweat-drenched sheets and basking in the knowledge that as soon as they both had a chance to recharge, they’d be repeating that experience, ad infinitum—Jack finally leaned over to retrieve his phone from where it was sat on the nightstand. When he lifted it up to check his emails, he glanced over to find that Harry was lying in the same position, the screen casting a ghostly glow onto his cheekbones.

“Anything interesting?” Jack asked, distracted now from his initial goal by whatever Harry was doing.

Harry didn’t respond at first, and then his eyes widened. He shot bolt upright with a gasp and stared down at his phone with a mixture of shock and delight. “Oh my god,” he cried out before looking up at Jack with a frantic expression. “Check yours,” he urged. “Check your email right now.”

Jack wasn’t sure what Harry was on about, but then he opened his inbox to find an email from a familiar name: the casting director he’d worked with for his Dunkirk audition. Jack glanced up at Harry again in wonderment. “Did you…?” he started, but he didn’t even manage to get the full question out before Harry was leaping into his lap with a squeal of triumph, his lips covering Jack’s face in celebratory kisses.

“We made it!” Harry screamed into his ear with enough force to have Jack wincing. “We made call backs, oh my god!”

Jack steadied Harry in his lap and stared up at him with a look of exasperation. “You’re lucky I really, really, really like you,” he told him.

Harry beamed back at him with his tongue peeking out just beneath his little bunny teeth. “Well,” he replied brightly, “It’s a good thing, then, that I really, really, really like you, too.”


End file.
